The Kaboom
by William Easley
Summary: November, 2015: Mabel wakes Dipper one morning to tell him some wonderful news . . . and sets off a chain reaction that will have unpredictable results. Wendip included, no extra charge.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: As always, my disclaimer: I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of the show's creator, Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them._

 **The Kaboom**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Lighting the Fuse**

 **(November 1, 2015)**

Among mothers it is a truth universally acknowledged that a child must be raised to have a good imagination.

However, in some cases mothers may have second thoughts . . . .

On a lovely Sunday autumn morning, how pleasant it is to laze in bed later than on a weekday, in that heavenly state halfway between waking and dreaming, when one's thoughts may drift in blissful ease to a smiling redheaded girl murmuring, "Kiss me, Dipper."

So much better than a pillow with a face drawn on it.

Until—

"Omigosh! Wake up! Wake up, Brobro! Look at this! Everybody! Hey, Mom! Dad! Wake up, wake up, _WAAAKE UP!_ "

Dipper rolled over, which was unfortunate since he had been lying on the perilous edge of the bed anyway, and hit the floor with a painful _klunk!_ "Mabel! What the he—heck?"

From downstairs came his mother's voice, not pleased: "What is going _on_ up there, you two?"

"You gotta look, you gotta look!" Mabel had jumped onto his bed and leaned over Dipper like a perched vulture interested in observing the final struggles of an expiring prairie dog. "Come on, get up! You gotta see this! Woohoo!"

Dipper levered himself up like a carpenter's ruler unfolding, a joint at a time. "Mabel!" He rubbed his head ruefully, feeling the little lump that had already formed. "What's the idea! I was asleep!"

"Pull your shorts up!"

They weren't down to his knees or anything, but they'd done that bed-roll thing and were riding low, though all the essentials were covered. He tugged them into place and slipped under the sheet as Mabel, in shorty pajamas and her faded lavender sleep shirt, knee-walked away from him. She cradled her laptop.

On the bedside table, his phone rang.

Mom called up the stairs: "I don't want to come up there!" But her footfalls were on the stairs already.

Wendy's ring tone. Dipper punched in. "Hello, Wen—"

"My man! Good goin', dude! Mabel just told me the news."

"Uh—what news?"

"Oh! She hasn't—I'll let her tell it! Call me back later, man! Bye!"

"Wendy," Dipper said, turning the phone off. "What was all that—"

"I called her!" Mabel yelled.

"Mabel!" Mom in the doorway, wrapped in her robe.

"Mom!" Mabel, grinning ear-to-ear.

"Mabel!" Mom, not grinning at all.

"Get Dad!" Mabel, unabashed.

"Mabel!" Mom, trying mighty hard to abash.

"Wait, wait," Dipper pleaded. "What's going on?"

"I'd like to know that, too!" Mom said, hands on hips.

"Get! Dad!" Mabel said. Then she yelled in a voice loud enough to make the neighborhood dogs start barking: "DAAAAAD! Come up here! Now!"

"Dipper," Mom said with a sigh, "what is your sister doing?"

"No idea!" Dipper said. "She ran in and pushed me out of bed—"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Are you two sixteen or _eight_?" Mom demanded.

"What's going on?" Alex Pines, in the doorway, wearing his baggy red pajamas and scratching like Grunkle Stan.

"Gather round!" Mabel said. "Gather, gather! Mom, you on that side of Dip. Dad, come and stand by my shoulder. OK, everybody ready? Ta-da!" She opened the screen of her laptop. "Behold!"

"The _National Times_ book review page?" Dad asked, sounding bewildered.

"Let me enlarge this."

Mabel fiddled with the track pad, and the best-seller column swelled. She scrolled down to "Children's Fiction" and pointed dramatically.

* * *

 **1 –** _ **Bride of the Zombie,**_ **by Stan X. Mason. Books for Young Readers. Supernatural mystery, 10-12. The Palms twins, boy and girl, spend a spooky summer with their eccentric uncle in the haunted town of Granite Rapids.**

* * *

"Hey!" Dad said. "Congratulations, Mason! That's very impressive!"

"It's _been_ on the best-seller list for weeks," Mom grumbled.

Mabel bounced on her knees. "Mom! It's _number one_! In a good way! Number-o uno! Nombre de Dios uno! _La numéro un_!"

" _Le,_ " Dipper corrected. They'd both had two years of French, but grammatical gender didn't seem to stick with Mabel. And only then did dawn break for Dipper, mentally speaking. "Hey! It made it to number one!"

"I would love to hear all about it," Mom said. " _After_ breakfast!"

However, she did lean over and kiss Dipper on the top of his head.

She led Dad downstairs. Mabel hugged her brother. " _I_ think it's great, anyway!" she said.

Dipper felt a little dazed. He sat with the laptop open on his lap, reading the best-seller listing over and over, though it was so short and changed not even a comma in between readings. "Wow," he said.

"Here, let me take that," Mabel said, retrieving her laptop. "I'm gonna go to my room, which is down the hall—"

"I know that," Dipper said.

"The _point_ , Brobro, is that I will be _there_ and you will be _here_ with your phone and Wendy is just a few number-punches away. Oh, by the way, I called her, so she already knows."

"Thanks," Dipper said, his tone silently adding, " _I would have liked to have told her myself, but, you know, whatever._ "

"Don't mention it." At the door, Mabel paused to turn the lock. "For privacy, you scallywag!" she said, winking.

As soon as the door closed with a click of the lock, Dipper called Wendy.

"Hey, Lumberjack Girl," he said. "Mabel just told me. And, uh, I think everybody in the neighborhood!"

"Congratulations, Dip! That's very impressive, 'specially for somebody who's sixteen!"

"I had a lot of luck," Dipper said.

She chuckled. "Luck, my foot! Skill, Dipper! And talent!"

"And," he said softly, blushing furiously, "a beautiful red-haired Muse inspiring me."

"Get out of town," she said, laughing heartily this time. "Mm, Big Dipper, I can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving. We're gonna kiss and snuggle and . . . celebrate! But wait, first tell me what this means."

"Uh, the book hitting number one?" Dipper thought for a few seconds. "I . . . don't really know! It's prestigious, I guess. You know, it, uh, it will mean maybe a lot of libraries will order copies of it. And when the paperback comes out, they'll probably put one of those banners on the cover, _National Times_ #1 Best-Seller!"

"You are gonna be so rich!"

Dipper laughed. "I . . . don't think so. Writers hardly ever get rich, unless they're like a world-wide best-seller writing about boy wizards, and movies get made and junk. But whatever comes in goes into the college fund, anyhow."

His phone chirped. He looked at the screen and then said, "Wendy, it's my agent! I've never spoken to her—"

"Take the call!" Wendy said, hanging up.

Dipper thumbed the answer icon and fought to keep his voice from climbing up into soprano register: "Hello?"

A husky woman's voice, New-York edged: "This is Bea Bergeron. May I speak to Mason Pines?"

"This is me. Uh, Hi."

"Well, do I need to break the news?" She sounded gleeful.

"The best-seller thing? No, I've heard," Dipper said. "My sister told me."

"Congratulations! We're going to do big things! Normally I wouldn't phone on a Sunday, especially so early, but when I opened the paper and saw the best-seller page, I had to call you. I'll be on the phone to Jan Maryk tomorrow. We've got time to hype _It Lurked in the Lake_ and goose the sales. And you can anticipate Brangwen's wanting you to finish number three ASAP." She said it like a word, a-sap. "Then they'll want a contract for three more, and I'm going to see to it that they treat you better financially this time around. Are you up for a multi-city signing tour?"

"Uh, I've got school," Dipper said.

"Oh, right. What year?"

"Third," Dipper said.

"What college?"

Moment of truth.

Dipper took a deep breath. "High school. I'm, uh, sixteen."

Long pause, a gasp, and then a bray of delighted laughter. "My God! You were _fifteen_ when you wrote that wonderful book!"

"Don't, uh, don't let it get out, please."

Bea laughed again. "Oh, doll, it would make such good publicity! I can see you on national TV, touting your book! Hey, are you hunky? Could we get teen girls interested in your books that way? Send me a photo of yourself."

"Uh, I will, but not—not for the book jacket, OK?" Dipper asked. "See, nobody here knows about me being a writer. I don't want to make a big thing out of it."

This time she sounded indulgent and affectionate: "You are such a sweetie, Mason!"

Moment of truth. Again.

"Uh, Bea? Miss Bergeron?"

"Bea, definitely, sweetie."

"Thanks. And I'm—everyone calls me—Dipper."

"Dipper. Ah-hah. So Tripper Palms is—"

"Kinda a fictional version of me, yeah," Dipper said.

"What can I say?" Bea asked. "Worked for Charlie Dickens and Davy Copperfield!" She chuckled again and then became all business: "All right, Dipper Pines, let me make some calls in the next couple of days, and then I'll phone you again and we'll lay out some serious career strategy. High school, huh? That makes timing tricky. Dipper, do you want to phone me instead?"

"S-sure," Dipper said. "Uh, what day?"

"Thursday's always good. What time do you have clear during the day?"

"Uh, lunch period is fifty minutes, starts ten past noon."

"All right, call me about three-fifteen, New York time. I'll make a note to clear the hour. Call the office number, tell Vi that I'm expecting your call, and she'll put you right through. We'll keep it to fifteen minutes to give you time to eat."

"No problem, I'll pack some sandwiches that day. Uh, your office number—"

"It's on the book contract, sweetie. Or, wait, here, I'll drop you an email with the info. Keep it. You're gonna need it. This is really big, Dipper. Bigger than you think."

"Thank you," Dipper heard himself say.

He was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Enjoy It While You Can**

 **(November 2, 2015)**

* * *

What with Mabel being Mabel, a few things leaked here and there.

At school on Monday afternoon, a surprised Dipper got a call during study hall to go—no, not to the principal's office, but to the library. I beg your pardon, the Media Center.

The librarian—sorry, Media Specialist—was Miss Geer, the kind of plump, smiling, gray-haired lady that you just knew lived with a herd of cats. She never spoke above a whisper, and you just knew her cats never mewed above a whisker.

"Uh, hi?" Dipper said, swallowing, standing in front of the desk. "I'm Mason Pines."

Miss Geer sat perched behind a waist-high counter on a tall chair, like a judge behind the bar, but she wasn't as intimidating. With her grandmotherly smile, she softly said, "Also known as Stan Mason, I believe?" And she produced a hardcover copy of _Bride of the Zombie._ "I'm planning to order a dozen of these. They're young for high school, but we have some reluctant readers that would enjoy a tale like this."

"Uh—fine?" Dipper said.

If it had been a classic tough-guy detective novel, Dip would have been wondering how much this dame knew, and what wise guy had shot his mouth off to her and wised her up to his racket.

It wasn't, though. He gulped again and muttered, "Mabel told you, didn't she?"

"On condition that I keep it quiet," Miss Geer said with a kind of placid satisfaction. "I won't tell anyone, of course, but if you would, please autograph this book. I'm going to put it in the display cabinet with a note that the author is a local writer who came by to sign it especially for our students."

At times in the writing of the book, Dipper had been stuck for a word or a phrase. That felt like nothing now. He put his tongue in the corner of his mouth— _This is how Mabel looks when she's concentrating_ , he thought—and in black ballpoint wrote on the flyleaf, "To the students of Piedmont High, hoping they enjoy a simple tale of mystery, kidnapping, and awkward sibling hugs." He signed it "Stan X. Mason" in a loopy sort of handwriting he'd practiced especially for autographing the books—not that he'd signed more than a dozen of them, all given as presents to close friends or family so far—and then handed the novel back to Miss Geer.

She smiled down at the signature, with its exaggerated X, the left-hand crossbar looped so the tip of it touched the top of the "t" in "Stan" and the lower loop coming up to touch the "s" in "Mason."

"What a striking signature. Would you consider giving a talk at the elementary school?" Miss Geer asked. "I'm sure the fifth and sixth graders would be thrilled."

"Ah—I'm not ready for that yet," Dipper said. "I want to keep my anonymity." To his irritation, he stumbled a little on pronouncing the word. "I, uh, I mean, I don't really write to try to be famous or anything, just—just to tell stories."

She turned her smile toward him, full of quiet understanding. "Well, if you should change your mind—"

"I'll let you know," he promised.

* * *

That same afternoon, Wanda Pines returned from a brief shopping expedition, opened the garage door, and hesitated. Two cars were there already—the twin's Carino and her husband's. She carefully parked between them, leaving just enough space for her to open the door and get out. She retrieved her shopping bags from the hatchback and went in through the utility-room door, pausing to close the garage door. It hummed down behind her as she pushed the inner door closed with her foot.

"Honey," she called, "where are you?"

"Here," Alex said from the living room. "Need help?"

"No, just two bags. What are you doing home so early? Did something happen at work?"

He met her in the kitchen and helped her stow the eggs, milk, and frozen food in the fridge. "Told you we were going to wind up the Carruthers Institute installation early. We finished before noon, and Judd told us all to take a half-holiday. Anyway, I wanted to talk with you about the kids."

Wanda stored the fabric grocery bags in the pantry and sighed. "What have they done now?"

She turned, and Alex pulled her to him and kissed her. "Nothing," he said, his voice affectionate. "But you'd never know it from the way you treat Mason."

"The way I—Alex, what are you talking about?"

He pulled her along by the hand. "Come with me."

They went to the living room, and Alex asked Wanda to sit on the sofa. He took a book from the coffee table and sat beside her, his hip touching hers as he held up the novel. "Have you even read this?"

Wanda rolled her eyes. It was _Bride of the Zombie,_ in its silly cartoonish dust jacket. "Hardly," she said. "I looked at it."

"Read it," Alex suggested. "It's a lot better than you think it is. It's funny and adventurous in a kid-like way. A little scary in parts, but like a roller-coaster. Fun scary, not terror scary. Mason did a really good job, but you act like it's—"

"It's a _kids'_ book, Alex," Wanda said. "It isn't serious. This isn't what I expect Dipper to do for a _living_."

"He could do it for a living, though," Alex said. "I've already got Julian working on his taxes for next year. He's making enough in royalties to have to do quarterly estimated returns and he needs a CPA."

"This is a fluke, though," Wanda said. "I don't want to make a big deal out of it because it's—like one of those teen fads. In a year or two Dipper will lose interest in this kind of thing, and it'll all fade away. I don't want him thinking we _expect_ this of him. You know he wants to be a scientist like your uncle Stanford, not a—a comic-book writer."

"It's a real book, not a comic book," Alex said quietly. "Anyway, I wouldn't dis comic-book artists and writers. I know some pretty cool guys at work who've done both. Manny in the design department draws _The Aspidistra_ , you know."

"The what?"

He chuckled. "Never mind. It's a popular graphic novel, very big among college students. Anyway, back to Mason. Mabel thinks he needs to feel a sense of accomplishment—"

"I tell him he's done a good job every time he brings home a good report card," Wanda objected.

"But his life's not about report cards," her husband said, putting his arm over her shoulders. "You hold back too much, darling. Mabel does these fantastic art pieces, Dipper writes a book—a best-selling book!—and you shrug it off. Give them some encouragement, please."

Wanda shook her head. "I'm sorry, I—it's hard."

"What makes it difficult?" Alex asked.

"Don't ask that. You know what happened to my sister." A note of bitterness crept into her voice. "I was never good enough, _she_ was always the princess, the _pretty_ one, the _smart_ one, and my parents fell all over themselves telling her how great she was." A tear crept down her cheek. "I don't want our kids winding up the way she did. That's why my mother and father died so young—they never got over the shock of what she did to herself. I—I don't want to talk about it."

"You never do," Alex said. He moved his arm and took her hand. "Sweetheart, holding back isn't good for them or for you. OK, don't go overboard, I understand that. I even understand why. But a little balance, OK? Tell Mason he's done a good job. Tell Mabel she's a wonderful artist. Our kids have _talents_ , Wanda. Mason's a passable guitar player, he's the best sprinter on the Varsity track team—even though the new coach is grudging with his praise, he is—and he can write! You know why he's doing all this?"

"Just being a kid," she murmured.

He shook his head. "He's desperately trying to prove himself to somebody."

After a long silence, Wanda asked, "Me, you mean?"

"You. Me. Mabel. Maybe someone else," Alex told her. "He's _sixteen_ , darling. He's always been unsure of himself. He's always felt inadequate. He's fighting his way toward manhood. Give him a chance to blossom. We've got two terrific kids. Just let them know that you love them."

"They know that already," she said. "I'm their mother."

"They know it," Alex agreed, wiping away her tear. "Just let them _feel_ it."

* * *

Dipper came home right after track practice and went straight to Mabel's room, where she slammed her laptop shut the moment he came in without knocking. Laughing in a slightly frantic, artificial way, she exclaimed, "Brobro! How was—what's wrong?"

"Mabel," he said, "we have to talk."

"Uh—OK," Mabel said.

"Not here. Let's go for a walk."

"Are you, uh, mad?" Mabel asked.

"I'm upset, put it that way."

They stopped in the kitchen. "Mom," Dipper said, "Mabel and I are going to walk over to the park and back."

"Dinner will be at six-thirty," she warned.

"It's only five now," Dipper said. "We'll be back in plenty of time."

As he opened the front door, she called out from the kitchen: "Oh, Dipper!"

He turned. "What?"

"I'm reading your book."

He stood, his hand on the doorknob, blinking for a moment. "Uh, I—I hope you like it." To Mabel, he said, "Come on."

They walked fast, past their old house—no sign of the Sheaffer kids in the yard—made the turn, and headed over to the park. Mabel nearly trotted beside him. They took one of the winding park paths and then stopped to sit on a bench in the shade of a tall, but now nearly leafless, catalpa tree. It was, Dipper knew from the information Wendy had given him through their touch-telepathy, a transplant, not a native tree.

"What is it, Broseph?" Mabel asked, sounding apprehensive.

"You _told_ ," Dipper said. "You told Miss Geer about the book! I asked you not to tell anybody, but—"

"Dipper," Mabel said, nudging him. "Come on! You've got a best-selling novel, she's a librarian, and it's like _wow_!"

Dipper sighed. "You know why it's number one this week, don't you?"

"'Cause it's a good book?" Mabel asked. She was wearing a pale green sweater with a red maple leaf that day, and she looked almost as though she were about to turtle into it and enter Sweater Town.

Dipper shook his head. "The figures are from two weeks ago. It got to be number one because of the run-up to Halloween, that's all. It's a spooky book, seasonal. It'll drop off now. Wait and see. It's not anything permanent."

"Yeah, but—number _one_ , Dipper! That's an accomplishment!"

"I know, I know, but—it feels phony, Mabel. I wrote it because I thought it would be fun, and it _is_ fun, but—I don't need the pressure of trying to write a number-one best-seller every single time. Now people are going to expect that."

"I'm sorry," Mabel said. "But enjoy this while you have it, at least!"

"I'll try. Don't tell anybody else, though, OK?"

"Nobody?"

" _Nobody_ ," Dipper said firmly. "I hope Miss Geer will keep quiet about it. I—I'm just not ready for this! I don't want everybody knowing who I am. I want you to like the book—"

"I _love_ it!" Mabel said. "Especially Alexa! You made her so funny and goofy!"

"Um, yeah, I did," Dipper said. Alexa had been as close as he could get to a word picture of Mabel, but whatever.

"And even with all that, Alexis still loves her," Mabel said softly.

He had to laugh a little. "OK, goofball, I love you."

"I love you, too, Dippingsauce. And honestly, _you're_ the goofball."

"But seriously, it messes with me to have people know I'm the one who wrote the book. Maybe someday—but I'm not ready for it yet."

"What did Wendy say?" Mabel asked. "You never told me."

Well . . . Wendy had said a lot of things. Very nice things. Things that Dipper loved to hear, that made him ache to be with Wendy, so they could touch and empty out all their feelings, sharing them fully. But—aloud, Dipper said, "She's thrilled. We can't wait for Thanksgiving week. But—she's not telling anybody about the book."

"OK, message received," Mabel said with a sigh. "But me and Mom and Dad know, so it's OK if we tell you we think it's great, right?"

"Don't do it too much," Dipper said. He smiled sadly. "The second I saw Tyrone back when we were twelve—I realized my head's already plenty big enough!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Let the Joyous News Be Spread!**

 **(November 3, 2015)**

* * *

Wendy told no one. That much must be clearly understood, or else one would foresee a disastrous argument and perhaps even a breakup as a result. But Wendy was as quiet as a church-mouse.

Mind! I do not know, of my own knowledge, that a church-mouse is quieter than a mouse domiciled in any other edifice. Were it left to my choosing, I should say that a defunct computer mouse was the most silent of any of the breed. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not touch it.

However . . . Though Grunkle Stan would be the last to admit it, ever since the publication of Dipper's book, he had followed its success as best he could. When in late September it peeped out at the world from the number 10 spot on the _National Times'_ best-seller list, he not only read it on the computer, but traveled to the big bookstore in the Dalles mall to buy a copy of the newspaper for the express purpose of clipping out the column.

In fact, he took a subscription to the _National Times'_ Sunday edition for a year just so he'd get a copy of each best-seller column. When _Bride of the Zombie_ rose to number 3, he'd said, "Yes! In your face, Harvey Pothead!" His heart was in the right place, but his grasp of YA fiction was somewhat lacking.

And there it hung for agonizing weeks, going neither up nor down. A TV tie-in novel, _My Fuzzy Pony: Remember the Mane!_ leapfrogged over it to number one, and Stan threw the paper to the floor in a rage. "Ya gotta be kiddin' me!" he'd exploded.

His wife Sheila heard him and that was when she learned that their great-nephew was a writer. She told Lorena, Lorena told Ford, and on the Monday of that week, Ford had innocently remarked to Wendy, "I see that Mason's book has hit number one. Good for him! I'll have to call him."

"Dr. Pines, dude," Wendy said anxiously, "be sure to tell him I didn't mention that to you. He doesn't want a fuss, and he made me swear to keep my lip zipped."

"Oh," Ford said, blinking. He had been one of the earliest readers of _Bride of the Zombie,_ and he had been the one, through some contacts in publishing, to find Dipper an agent for the novel, and the agent had found the publisher. "Why doesn't he want people to know?" he asked in sincere bemusement. "This is quite an accomplishment for such a young man!"

"You know Dipper," Wendy said with a shrug. "Even when he does something great, he feels it was all a matter of luck, that the next time he's gonna fall on his face and everybody'll think he's a loser."

"No one would think that!" Ford objected.

"You know it and I know it. But Dipper . . . Dipper is Dipper."

That was a proposition against which Ford could raise no argument. "I'd better warn Stan and the girls not to talk about it, then," he said, and he took out his computer phone. Yes, that's what he called it.

" _Talk_ about it?" Stan said in incredulous response to his warning. "Me? Fat chance! Poindexter, I _know_ it's a secret! You just keep your big yap shut, that's all! Yeah, yeah, I'll tell Lorena and Sheila. But McGucket knows, 'cause Lorena told him, and I'm sure he's told Mayellen, so Tate prob'ly knows, too. OK, OK, I'll start damage control right now! Sheesh!"

And meanwhile back in the Shack—

Soos, adjusting his eyepatch for the tourists that would descend on them in a few minutes, asked Wendy, "Girl dude? What's the deal with other Mr. Pines being, like, so crazy bonkers upset? Did we do something wrong?"

"Nah," Wendy assured him, helping him adjust his red string tie. "Just a family thing."

"That's good. Oh, hey, before I forget, open that box behind the counter for me, OK? I gotta go get something."

The box was heavy and almost a cube. Wendy grunted as she hefted it onto the counter and then used the letter opener to score and then break the packing tape. She opened the box, saw layers of white glossy paper, pulled them out, and then took out—

Yep, knew you were ahead of me there.

Soos came back and said, "I like the cover! OK, help me set this up."

"This" was a tall wire rack, the kind you see in bookstores. They put it at the end of the counter, near the first cash register (there were two now, the second one manned when demand was high). He started to stack copies of _Bride of the Zombie_ , face-out, on the rack. "Also," Soos said, "I made this sign."

He held it up:

 **LOCAL WRITER'S BEST-SELLER, DAWGS!**

 **BUY IT AND READ IT! THEN BUY ANOTHER ONE!**

"Soos," Wendy said, "this is sweet, but you know Dipper doesn't want anybody to know he wrote it, right?"

"I will not tell," Soos said solemnly. "I'm just gonna say that an anonymous author walks among us."

"I guess that's OK," Wendy said.

"Right, so push these until you got to go to school, OK?"

"Yeah." Wendy had only two classes to make up before she could officially graduate. She planned to do that one class a term this year, so she went to high school for a couple of hours a day—from eleven to two, actually, because she hung out with friends at lunch—and spent a few hours working at the Shack every day. Saving money for college, of course.

Somehow—nobody knows quite how these things happen—Wendy did sell six copies of the book before she left at 10:45. All but one went to locals: Toby Determined, Susan Wentworth, Mr. Wellington, Tyler Cutebiker, and—Jeff the Gnome. A tourist bought the other one.

Jeff sneaked in quietly and unseen, in his Gnomish way, and popped up behind the counter, holding a copy in his hand. "How much?" he whispered.

Negotiating with Gnomes is very difficult. For one thing, their notion of counting, while it works for them, has little if anything to do with human mathematics. For another, they never want to pay the first price, but always want to haggle, and Wendy had no time for haggling. She made a quick decision. "Show me how much money you've got in your pocket."

Jeff pulled out a handful of change. Wendy took a quarter. "This is a special one-time price for Gnomes, man," she said. "If you want to argue about it, the price goes up to many-many of these."

"My lucky day!" Jeff said.

She bagged and handed him the book. "There you go, man. Uh—you dudes _can_ read, right?"

"I can," Jeff said. "I'll read it to the others. Shmebulock can read, too, but his narration's difficult to understand." He put his hand beside his mouth and whispered, "We're in this book!"

"Yeah," Wendy said, smiling. "The author told me. Only—don't let anybody know who really wrote this, OK? He wants to keep it quiet."

"Relax, babe," Jeff said, displaying all the Gnomish charm he could, which raised his attractiveness roughly to that of a diseased possum. "Nobody will ever hear from me that Stanford Pines wrote this!"

So that was something.

* * *

At Piedmont High, Miss Geer had displayed the book in isolated splendor in a glass case with a banner behind it: READ THE BEST-SELLER BOOK BY A LOCAL WRITER! COPIES ARE AVAILABLE ON THE RESERVED SHELF!

Dipper had to look away every time he passed the Media Center going to and from classes. _I should be happy about this! Why does seeing my book on display like that make me feel so guilty?_

He didn't know, and Mabel was not much help. Wendy sort of understood—well, she totally understood his feeling that way, but she couldn't explain it. "Now I sound like I'm begging for attention," he muttered to her that evening as they face-timed. "I just—this isn't how I thought it would feel, that's all."

"Dude," Wendy said, "you don't have to feel like you're an impostor or some deal. Look, can I tell you some things I learned in my college psychology class?"

"Sure," Dipper said.

"Don't take it personally, though," Wendy cautioned. "There's something called the impostor syndrome. Ever hear of it?"

"No, I don't think so."

"OK, so usually high-achieving people have it, right? But it's like they can't internally acknowledge their achievements. I mean, they think the things they do that get them praise and so on are just dumb luck. Is that how you feel?"

"Sort of," he admitted.

"Uh-huh. So even though the book's a big success and all, you're thinking it just happened, and that you're not really a good writer, you're an impostor, and next time people are gonna find out and humiliate you, right?"

"Well . . . yeah," Dipper said. "I didn't know other people feel that way, though."

"Yeah, some big-time successful people have written about feeling that way, having the impostor syndrome. Let me see. Maya Angelou! You know who that is?"

"Poet, and she wrote _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,"_ Dipper said. "Great book."

"But she wrote, 'I've written eleven books, and every time I think they're going to find out now that I've run a game, and everybody's going to find me out.' Hey, Dip, another one—Neil Gaiman. You know him, right?"

"Sure!" Dipper said. "If I could write half as well as he does—"

"Wait, wait. Just go online and look up what Neil Gaiman said about the time he met Neil Armstrong. They both have impostor syndrome!"

"You're kidding."

"Nope, cross my heart. Dip, you're not alone. Feeling the way you do—that just means you got ambition, man! Don't ever be scared to try your best. You're not an impostor, dude, you're the real deal."

Dipper felt as if he were about to weep. "Oh, God, I wish I could be with you just for an hour."

Wendy chuckled. "Same here, Big Dipper. But—to be honest—I gotta run right now or I'll be late to my community college class! Same time Friday?"

"Yeah, and text me and let me know how your mid-term went."

"Pretty sure I got an A, but I'll let you know right after class. Love you, man."

"Love you, too, Magic Girl."

After he hung up, Dipper still felt lonely. And, despite Wendy's efforts at cheering him up, still unsure and vaguely fearful. What if his next book _didn't_ measure up?

He was up in his room, lying back on his bed. Mabel was in her room, working on some art project. He didn't want to ask his mom how she was liking his book. He wanted to talk, but . . . Wendy was going to class. He could call . . . .

Well, there it was, right? He could call nobody. He had a few friends his own age, but he couldn't remember ever calling any of them, except to ask for a ride to a practice or something like that.

He sighed, glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. They'd had an early dinner, and then—

Homework?

All done.

Read about Neil Gaiman and the impostor syndrome and all on the web? He'd do that, but right now, he wanted to talk, not read.

Seven-thirty, which meant that in Minnesota it would be, let's see, eight-thirty, nine-thirty.

Maybe not too late.

He picked up his phone and punched in a number.

A girl's voice answered: "Hello?"

"Eloise?"

"Yes, that's—wait. Dipper?"

"Yeah," Dipper said. "It's me. How have you been?"

"Oh, my God!" Eloise Niemeyer said. "It's so good to hear your voice! I'm good, I'm good. I broke up with my boyfriend last week, and that was rough, but you know, overall, I'm good! How are you?"

"Lonely," Dipper admitted, grinning. "Hey, you sound so mature!"

"You too!" Eloise said. "Your voice is deeper. Still hunting those ghosts?"

"You better believe it!" Dipper said. "You got rid of the one in your basement, right?"

"Yeah, I followed that exorcism ritual you told me about, and she went on, I guess. She looked so happy as she was fading out. Made me cry a little. Thanks, Dipper."

"It's what I do," Dipper said.

The two of them had reconnected not long before—they had met at the infamous Westminster House in San Jose, the place that had nearly claimed their lives—but then had gone their separate ways for the last year and a half. Now, speaking to her on the phone, Dipper could picture Eloise as she was when he'd first met her, an athletic, toned girl, long, straight, browny-blonde hair, darker arched brows, eyes that looked shy but happy, and when she wasn't exasperated, a big wide white smile. Cute. Really cute.

They'd sort of bonded when the evil spirit that dominated the old mansion had turned on them, and now it seemed as though that had been only yesterday, not back in March of 2014.

Happily, they chatted for an hour. Dipper didn't mention his book, or his feelings of angst, or his struggles with the track coach this year, none of that. He did tell Eloise about Wendy—though he didn't mention that Wendy was older than he was—and Eloise seemed delighted. "Good for you!" she said. "Maybe my next boyfriend won't turn out to be such a turd."

Later, as he got ready for sleep, Dipper's mood turned again.

Maybe it was impostor syndrome, maybe just Dipper being Dipper.

He started to wonder if he'd betrayed Wendy by calling Eloise. Even though Eloise was like a thousand miles away and there was nothing between them but memories of terror, and they'd probably never see each other again.

Wendy texted him at ten-thirty: _96 on the midterm! Still an A student!_

 _Proud of you, LG!_ he'd replied. He almost called her to talk. Then he thought he wouldn't. It was late, and she had to get home and do the cleaning-up she always did before going to bed. Still, _I'll have to tell Wendy about talking to Eloise,_ he thought. It would be difficult, but he'd do it.

Because if he didn't, the moment he and Wendy kissed, she'd know it anyway.

The moment they kissed.

Thanksgiving.

At least that was not so far away.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Dealing with It**

 **(November 4, 2015)**

* * *

It was a bright cool day in November, and all the clocks were chiming thirteen.

"Whoa, dude!" Soos said. "That's the last time I let Jeff, like, do maintenance on the clocks!"

In point of fact, the time was nine in the morning, and the Mystery Shack was getting ready to open. True, business throughout November—starting the day after Halloween—dwindled down and down, and the Shack probably would get no more than forty or fifty tourists all day long.

Still, that was enough to keep the doors open, and by tradition, the Mystery Shack did business from the middle of April through the day before Thanksgiving. Then it buttoned up for the winter. This winter, Wendy was planning on staying over between Christmas and January 7, because Soos, Melody, and their kids were going on vacation in Mexico with Abuelita to meet their relatives there and soak up some of the Mexican culture.

At the moment, though, they all winced at the cacophony of clocks going off all over the house. Wendy roamed around silencing clocks, which were booming out at top volume. "Even the electric ones that don't have chimes are chiming!" she yelled. "How'd Jeff even _do_ that?"

"It's like a mystery wrapped in an enigma on a bun of puzzlement drenched with delicious secret sauce," said Soos, whose wife had put him on a diet to lose twenty-five pounds. He shut off the owl clock in the parlor. The cuckoo clock in the room that once was Ford's coo-cooed its thirteenth coo-coo and fell silent on its own.

"Think that's got it," Wendy said as the echoes faded out. She was dressed for work—no longer in flannel shirt and jeans, as in the old days, but in tailored tan slacks, a green blazer, and, well, OK, under that a green flannel shirt with a subdued, tasteful plaid pattern. Her name tag now read WENDY / ASST MGR. It was the second one Soos had given her after her promotion, since she refused to wear the first one, which Soos had ordered engraved to read WENDY / ASS MAN. She wiped her forehead and stepped off the low step-stool. "Whoo! I can't take this noise. Look, man, you gotta talk to Jeff."

"I'll call him," Soos said, picking up the old-fashioned house phone next to the cash register.

"Wait, what? Jeff the Gnome has a phone now?"

Soos beamed. "Oh, yeah, Wendy dawg. Ever since the Gnomes, like incorporated and started to make human money, he kinda indulges himself. He gave himself an expense account as the Gnome Queen's Prime Minister."

"Huh," Wendy said. "Seeing as how the Gnome Queen's a badger and Jeff does all the talking for her, I guess she said it was OK."

"He said she said it was OK," Soos agreed. He dialed a number, listened for a second, then hung up the phone.

"Line busy?" Wendy guessed.

"Huh? Oh, no, Jeff never talks on the phone. I just let it ring three times and he comes over. See, if it rings once and stops, he knows that's Mr. Pines. He helps them run their pest-control and garbage disposal business, you know."

"For a commission," Wendy said. She knew Stan well.

"Well, yeah, ten per cent. In money. They tried to pay him in dead mice a couple times, but he insisted."

Wendy nodded. "So, what happens if Jeff's phone rings twice?"

"That," said Soos, "is a Gnome mystery. But I think it means the little guy's set up a date and some Gnome lady's said yes."

Without the door opening, without a window opening, and with no sound at all, Jeff stood there in front of them. "You rang, Mr. Soos?" he asked. "Hello, Wendy!"

"Hi, man," Wendy said. "Dude, seriously, you gotta re-fix the clocks. They're all chiming nutso."

"But we threw in the extra chimes for free," Jeff said.

"You can, like, take them back," Soos said. "Just put the clocks back like they were, OK, Gnome dude?"

Jeff rubbed his hands together and smiled. "Same price as before?"

"You got it!" said Soos happily.

"I'm on it!"

Jeff climbed the wall—Gnomes can find handholds that don't technically exist—and tinkered with the gift-shop clock. It clicked. Jeff scrambled down. "There, that's one. I'll go take care of all the others."

When he'd left the room, Wendy said, "Soos, I don't want to tell you your business, but, man, Jeff screwed up the clocks in the first place. He should fix them for free!"

"Shh!" Soos said. "He just charged me five bucks the first time to do maintenance on all of them. It's a bargain! I'm like saving twice the original amount!"

A carload of tourists, all middle-aged to elderly—the Shack didn't get many kids while school was in session—came in and Soos went over to them, doing the full Mr. Mystery routine. The six of them decided to take the Mystery Tour, museum tour included at no extra charge, and for a few minutes Wendy was left alone. She sat behind the counter, leaned her chin on her hand, and daydreamed. It was like being fifteen again.

Jeff returned, told her all the clocks would behave now, and she opened the register and gave him the five dollars in quarters. He didn't much care for paper money for some reason, though the Gnomes would accept it for an exterminating job, providing they could change it into, well, change, at the earliest opportunity, which usually meant the Arcade.

People in town had become used to the sight of five Gnomes forming a pyramid so the top man could feed in the bills and receive the quarters from the change machine. Kids liked to watch them, because for some reason the Gnomes thought the change machine was a slot machine and they always came up winners.

"Are you guys reading the book?" Wendy asked.

Jeff puffed out his chest. "Read it already. Gonna read it again tonight! The kids love it, and even some of the feral Gnomes are gonna come over to hear it." Jeff laughed. "That's a brilliant book. The Gnarls! Love 'em! They're just like Gnomes, but Gnarlier! I especially like that one guy that can only say his own name! He's a hoot!"

"I'll tell the author you like it," Wendy said.

"Thanks! So long, Wendy!"

And without vanishing—that is, he did not stand still, become transparent, and fade away—Jeff slipped out of the room so adroitly that Wendy wasn't even sure she'd seen him go. That's a kind of gift that Gnomes have.

Then Myron, the heavyweight, bearded dude whom everybody usually called Pizza Guy, came in, jangling the bell over the gift-shop door. He was wearing one of his red pizza shirts, but because the weather had turned nippy he also wore long pants and boots instead of shorts and sandals and an extra-large windbreaker. "Uh, hi. Do you, uh, have that book? You know the one?"

"Oh, yeah." Wendy pointed to the stand, which was fully loaded with ten copies of _Bride of the Zombie._ In fact, they were the last ten out of two dozen—Soos had already re-ordered.

Myron paid for the book and said, "I heard it's real good and it's a lot like town. I mean the setting in it."

"Yeah," Wendy said. "It's called Granite Rapids, but it's a lot like Gravity Falls." Mischievously, she added, "There's even a pizza-joint hangout."

"Cool!" Pizza Guy said, and he went out clutching the book to his chest.

Before long Poolcheck and Tats came in and each bought a copy. Then Blubs and Durland showed up and Durland bought one. Wendy wondered about that—nobody in town knew for sure whether the deputy could even read—but Durland cleared it up: "Daryl's gonna read me to sleep with it," he confided.

"Deputy!" Blubs said. "We're on duty. What do you say?"

"Uh—you're under arrest for some reason we'll think up later?"

Blubs hooked his thumbs in his belt because on TV he'd once seen Sheriff Andy Taylor do that. "No, no, what are you supposed to call me?"

"Oh. I'm sorry. Sheriff Blubs. He's gonna read me to sleep with it, I mean. Sheriff Blubs is."

"That's better. Thank you, Miss Corduroy. Come along, darlin'."

The two left, with Wendy still trying to figure out whether Blubs had said "darling" or "Durland." Well, didn't matter. With them, it was six of one. . . .

By the time Wendy left for school at a quarter to eleven, they were down to only four remaining copies of the book—a couple sold to tourists, the rest to townsfolk.

"Man!" Soos observed. "They're selling like hot cakes, dawg! Hot cakes! With creamery butter . . . and maple syrup . . . and a side of sausage and home fries . . . and cheese . . . ."

Wendy left for school to the sound of Soos's murmuring and salivating.

* * *

And six hundred miles south, down in Piedmont, at track practice that afternoon, Chuck Macavoy, who ran the 1500 meter, asked Dipper, "You seen the book Miss Geer's got on display outside the library?"

"Noticed it," Dipper said. They were doing crunches, and he was holding Chuck's ankles for him. Dipper had just finished his set. Chuck was good at them and came up smoothly. "That's thirty-three."

Breathing a little hard, Chuck said, "Somebody told me it reminds them of you."

"Thirty-four," Dipper said. "Huh? What's that mean?"

"It's about a brother and sister. Twins."

"Thirty-five. Lots of twins in the world, man."

"Yeah, but the girl's a lot like your sister Mabel."

"Thirty-six. Huh. I'll have to read it."

"It's a kid's book. But I heard it's funny."

"Thirty-seven. I'll check it out."

"It's set in an imaginary California town—"

"Macavoy! Pines! No talking except for counting!" Coach bellowed.

"Sir, yes sir!" Macavoy yelled back.

"Thirty-eight," Dipper said, feeling grateful to the coach.

* * *

Later that same evening, back home, Dipper got a call from Billy Sheaffer. "Could you come and help me with math?" he asked. Billy was ten, like Dipper an avid reader—books on subjects like World War II and dinosaurs fascinated him—and, Dipper was firmly convinced, the reincarnation of Bill Cipher.

The mysterious being called the Axolotl had more or less advised Dipper, through the mysterious being called the Oracle, to help Billy learn about kindness and friendship. And Dipper, who carried the tiniest fragment of the original Bill Cipher in his heart—quite literally, because Bill had donated a few of his molecules to start Dipper's heart beating again after another trans-dimensional enemy had stopped it—Dipper was trying his best to help.

To say he had mixed feelings would be like saying the ocean was a bit wet.

Truth to tell, he was scared of Bill Cipher. Still. And yet—

After Weirdmageddon, when Cipher occasionally put in appearances in Dipper's dreams and then later when he taught Dipper how to slip in and out of the Mindscape to confer with him—they'd become . . . hmm. Not "friends." "Frenemies," maybe. Dipper had to admit that Bill had helped him more than once, sometimes in important ways. Like saving his life that one time for sure, and twice more maybe. But Bill always had his own agenda, and Dipper wasn't sure even now if item 42 on it was "Kill Pine Tree."

Yet, darn it, Billy reminded Dipper of himself—smart, introverted, painfully shy, awkward, unsure of himself, physically marked—Dipper's birthmark, Billy's missing eye (replaced by a very good artificial one, but it was noticeable). So—

"Sure," he told Billy on the phone, and, since he didn't have guitar lessons that evening, he went straight down the street to the Sheaffers' house as soon as dinner was over.

It still felt odd to Dipper, probably always would, to sit beside Billy in the room that used to be Dipper's before the Pines family had moved to a larger house down at the cul-de-sac. Billy showed Dipper his homework.

Oh, yeah, that old fun struggle, multiplying and dividing fractions. "OK," Dipper said. "Let's take this first problem, six times 5/12. To start with, can you re-state the fraction as a division problem?"

"Scale it, you mean?" Billy asked.

"Um, no, not exactly. If you had to write the fraction like a division problem, how would you do it?"

Billy thought hard. "Uh, I think . . . five divided by twelve?"

"Right!" Dipper said. "Now, if you're multiplying it, it's going to be the same as six five-twelfths, understand?"

"Just like six times one is six ones," Billy said, nodding.

"OK, how would you do the multiplying?"

Billy's first attempt gave him 30/72.

Dipper showed him why that was wrong by doing the division and writing the numbers out as decimals. 5/12=.4167, and 30/72=.4167, too. "If you multiply the numerator and the denominator both, they still work out to be the same number, see? They can't be the same if you're multiplying. It has to be a larger number than you started with, understand?"

He led Billy finally to grasp that only the numerator should be multiplied, so—"Is it 30/12?" Billy asked.

"Let's check it by adding," Dipper said. "Remember, if the denominator is the same, you just add the numerators." He showed that 5/12+5/12+5/12+5/12+5/12+5/12=30/12. "You got it."

After that, Billy caught on. Dipper spent half an hour with Billy and then said, "I think you've got it now. Let me see your homework paper." He checked over the problems and Billy's penciled answers. "A hundred per cent so far," Dipper said. "You can finish the other ten problems on your own. Let me know what you make on this, OK?"

"Sure," Billy said. "Thanks."

Dipper pushed his chair back, but as he stood up, he noticed something. On the bookshelf over the desk lay a familiar volume: _Bride of the Zombie._ It had a yellow sticky note as a bookmark, about two-thirds of the way through. "Are you reading this?" Dipper asked.

Billy looked up, turning his head so his good eye could focus. "Huh? Oh, yeah. It's funny! And it seems so familiar. Like something I dreamed or some deal."

Dipper picked up the book and opened it to the first few pages. "Granite Rapids, California," he said. "I don't think that's a real place."

"No, it's this imaginary weird little town," Billy said. "It's a fiction book. See, there are twins in it, like my sisters, but in the book, one's a girl and the other's a boy, and they come from this town in Oregon called Stonemount, but they're staying for the summer with their uncle, who's this crazy kind of old guy named Manford who owns a tourist attraction." He blinked—though if you noticed, he could only blink his good eye—and said, "I _know_ I've dreamed something just like that. Or close. Anyway, it's a funny book."

"Not the kind you usually read, though," Dipper said. Billy's tastes ran to history books—all above his grade level.

"Guess my brain wants some time off," Billy said with a shy smile. "Mabel gave that book to me. A late birthday present, she said. I just got around to reading it, and I want to finish it tonight before I go to sleep."

"Oh, well, I'm glad you like it, then. See you around."

"See you," Billy said, returning to his math homework.

And for whatever reason, late that night—between one and two in the morning, and for the first time in many weeks—Dipper had One Of Those Dreams.

A Mindscape dream. Everything black and white and shades of gray. And he could sort of control it. At first, he was in his own room in their new house, hovering a few inches above his bed, aware of his own sleeping body below him. The full moon peered in his window (he knew the moon was nowhere near full in fact, but was a waning crescent), and in the pale light flooding in, he saw the room was clearly his, though the furniture and walls all stood distorted and strange.

But he wanted to be somewhere else. He concentrated, and then everything grayed out for a moment until he found himself up in Gravity Falls, in the woods past the Shack. To be specific, in the small clearing where the stone effigy of Bill Cipher stood. Paradoxically, though the night lay deep and dark, he could see clearly enough. To be sure, everything looked like the negative of a black-and-white photo, but everything showed up.

And there it stood, bigger than life (or maybe his dream shape had become small), a stone triangle with a wide staring eye, a top hat, and an extended stick-figure hand. Seeing it gave Dipper the creeps.

"Bill?" he asked. "Are you here? Is part of you here, anyway?"

"Less than 5/12, Pine Tree."

"Is that really you?"

"Let me cackle-eight it. Mm, carry the bajillion . . . I'd say it's only about 1.5,000,000(e-8) of me. And I'm not exactly _here_ , kid, not hanging around my handsome statue in the woods. In fact, factually speaking, I'm right inside your head de facto. Man, it sure is crowded in here . . . all these gorgeous redheads."

Dipper imagined grinding his teeth and ignored the crack. He asked, "Is this real?"

"Who knows? Not me. I don't even _have_ a nose! See what I did there?"

"You're still insane."

"And what's your point?"

"I'm scared," Dipper admitted.

After a pause, the familiar high-pitched voice said, "You got a right to be, Pine Tree. Something bad's coming."

"From you?"

"Ah-hah-hah-hah! Sorry to disabuse you, but nope. Old Axolotl's got me. The human kid you're tutoring is most of me, but he won't know that for years to come. By the time I wake up inside that meat bag, I'm supposed to be a reformed character. Damn, this is so hard."

"I never heard you swear before."

"Yeah, well, you're sixteen now, get used to it. Kid, sorry, but I'm losing contact. Wish I could help you out, but I got like zero foresight in this shape. Foreboding I can get, forecasting no can do. But hang in there, OK?"'

"O—" Dipper said.

And opened his eyes in his room, quite normal. "—K," he finished. For some reason his heart hammered inside him. "Oh, no," he groaned.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Laying Plans**

 **(November 5, 2015)**

* * *

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of success, it was the age of fear of failure, it was the high point of a young career, it was the depth of worry, it was the fast run-up to a reunion, it was a slow drag of days, it was the season of hope and the winter of despair.

In other words, Dipper felt caught in his own tale of two cities. Well, strike that, let's be fair, neither Piedmont—which was a suburb—or Gravity Falls, which was—uh, whatever it was—qualified as a city. So a tale of two places where Dipper lived, maybe. Doesn't have a Dickensian ring, but that's OK.

Anyway, though right then his body was in Piedmont, his heart was in Gravity Falls with Wendy. He didn't really know what he needed, but whatever it was, he felt certain that Wendy could provide it.

He didn't like this feeling of suspension between two poles. In some ways he didn't like his own personality. Like the frog who found being green not so easy, he found being Dipper kind of difficult. If only, like Kermit, he could discover that in fact being himself was what he wanted to be. . . .

Wendy. Not all that long until he'd see her. Only at the same time, it was _too_ long.

He and Mabel had planned it out: his and Mabel's last day of classes before Thanksgiving would be Friday, November 20. The first reasonable flight from Oakland to Portland would take off at 7:35 PM and arrive at 9:15 PM—there were some that were impossible because they couldn't get from school to the airport in time to catch them, as well as a few others that left as early as 6:00, but they had stops and wouldn't get into Portland until after midnight, so Mr. and Mrs. Pines turned thumbs down on them.

Anyway, the one-way tickets, coach class, would run about a hundred and fifty dollars apiece. Dipper had healthy savings, and he said he'd pay the fares. Mabel fretted because their Grunkles had spoiled them by flying them first-class, but Dipper pointed out that (A) since he had made some money, he didn't want to leech off Stan and Ford this time and (B) since the first-class tickets were way up there in price, he didn't want to spring for _that_ much money, but Mabel was welcome to pony up the difference.

Mabel no liked.

So—the twins would fly up on Friday evening, Stan or Ford (or, Dipper prayed, Wendy) would meet them in Portland and drive them to the Falls, where they'd spend Friday night through the following Saturday morning with their friends and family. Mom and Dad planned to drive up, starting early in the morning of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (Dad had days off beginning that day), and after Thanksgiving they'd all ride home together in the family car.

Except they had some negotiating to do. Mom was not at all sure that the twins should be allowed to fly alone.

"We've done it before," Dipper pointed out.

"Well . . . but you're not driving to the airport by yourselves."

"You or Dad can ride along with us!" Mabel said. "Then whoever does can drive Helen back home, so we won't have to deal with airport parking. I call driver!"

"I think we'd better just drop you off in your father's car," Mom said. "Friday traffic, and the airport, and a holiday week coming up—it will be dangerous."

Dad said they'd work it out, leaving Mabel beaming. Dipper sensed that she planned to be the driver on the way in.

Maybe it came from helping Billy with his math homework, or maybe it was just missing Wendy so much, but Dipper found it hard to concentrate in classes that Thursday. Instead of taking notes on the classes, he kept doodling with numbers.

 _Let's see: from right now, 9:27 AM, November 5, to the time we land in Portland at 9:15 PM, will be . . .fifteen days, eleven hours, and forty-eight minutes._

The teacher was showing a PowerPoint about the dates of a British monarch. Everyone else was writing the information down, because it would be on the mid-term next week.

Dipper was multiplying.

 _So that works out to, let's see, three hundred seventy-one hours and forty-eight minutes. Whoops, forty-seven minutes now. So that will be . . . .22,307 minutes. Or, hmn, 1,338,420 seconds . . . ._

Time was a funny thing. Right now, Dipper told himself, when he sat in his history class daydreaming, one-third of a world and eight hours away in London the kids were piling up paper and wood for their Guy Fawkes bonfire night. Penny for the Guy. Please to remember the fifth of November. Gunpowder treason and plot. _V for Vendetta_. Alan Moore. Did he have impostor syndrome? Do you have a syndrome or experience it? Huh?

"Mason," the teacher said, "what is the term for the political decision to replace James II as King of England with William of Orange?"

"Glorious Revolution," Dipper heard himself saying. "That was in 1688."

The teacher turned from him to the whiteboard, where, beside the projected PowerPoint he had written 1688 in big red letters. "Yes. Yes it was," he said drily. "Play attention, please."

The worst of times, man, right at that moment. But in, let's see, 1,338,320 seconds he'd see Wendy and the best would sweep away the worst, talk about a glorious revolution, guy!

He'd brought his lunch—a couple of roast-beef sandwiches—and during the lunch period, as he'd promised, he called Bea, his agent. She was upbeat and enthusiastic. Brangwen was planning on promoting the second book with ads, the preliminary readers thought it was even better than the first one—Grunkle Manny was as funny a character as Alexa, and the mystery angle was exciting, too—and it looked as if the second contract would be better than the first in a lot of ways.

"Also," Bea told him, "there's something cooking under the surface. I won't get your hopes up, but I may be getting in touch with you some time in December. Sure you don't want to do an autograph tour?"

"Not quite yet," Dipper told her.

And so passed much of the school day, with Dipper paying about half attention to class and half, or a little more, to his daydreams, his hopes, his worries, his fears.

* * *

Tuesdays and Thursdays were busy days for Dipper. During the fall the track team practiced four afternoons a week, Monday through Thursday. Then he either walked home or caught a ride with an older teammate, hurried through whatever homework was left over from study hall (never a lot, he was obsessive about that), had dinner, and then walked down to the end of the street to the Morgensens' house, where he had his now twice-weekly guitar lessons.

His playing had hit a plateau. He was competent, but he realized already he'd never be a first-rate guitarist. Still, he liked playing and noodling around, writing songs. He'd learned enough notation to be able to fill in a music staff with chords and notes, though very rarely did he feel satisfied with the tunes he produced.

Mr. Morgensen was encouraging: "You may never be great, but you've got talent, and there's so much satisfaction and joy to be found in music. Think of all the less talented who'd love just to be good. And you _are_ good, Dipper. You're good."

Forty-five minutes of lessons, then the walk back to their house, carrying his old guitar—he planned to ask for an electric model for Christmas, nothing too expensive, maybe a Yamaha—they retailed for about three hundred dollars, within Mom and Dad's price range, and Robbie had recommended that model as great for a beginner.

And . . . for the rest of his music-playing, as long as the electric guitar would hold out, he'd probably stick with that one and never upgrade again. And he'd certainly never give up his old acoustic, irritating though it was to have to re-tune it after playing one piece. He'd composed his first song, the one he'd done for Wendy, on that beginner's guitar, and he'd never surrender it.

Sentimental value, man. Even though Grunkle Stan had once remarked, "Here's the deal with sentimental value: ya can't use it to buy chips in Vegas!"

* * *

That evening while Dipper was away at his lesson, Mabel had a conference with Mr. and Mrs. Pines. "OK," she said. "Dip won't let us tell anybody that he's Stan X. Mason, hot new writer. But—and this is a bigger but than Mrs. Levinson's—"

"Mabel!" her mother said.

"Mom, you should see her writing on the whiteboard! Anyway, our out is that Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, and our aunts know about Dipper, right? And I guess Old Man McGucket and his wife, Soos and Wendy—you get the picture. We won't be spilling the beans if we talk him up with them. I want to turn part of the Thanksgiving celebration into a party for my brobro."

"That's a nice thought," her dad said.

"Thanks," Mabel said. "So I figure we won't do it on Thanksgiving Day itself, 'cause that's kinda its own thing. But how about Friday morning we have a little get-together in the Mystery Shack? Just people who know about Dipper and the book. We'll put together a surprise party! And maybe we can get him out of his weird depression or whatever."

Wanda Pines shook her head. "I think you're making too much out of Dipper's mood," she said. "He's not _clinically_ depressed. He's just moody. He's a teen!"

"But I love him like a brother!" Mabel said. "And he's all weirded out by his success! I want him to be happy, not all, 'Oh, no, it was all just dumb luck, I'll never do it again!'"

"Well," Mom said.

"You told me you thought the book was funny," Dad told her gently.

She smiled. "It is, but—well, Mabel, don't you think it was sort of insulting when he described you in the book?"

"What?" Mabel said. "Alexa, you mean? Mom, she's _funny!_ And she's not really me! Come on, when I was twelve did you think I was up there in Gravity Falls looking for an epic summer romance?"

"The novel is fiction," Dad said.

"Right, fiction!" Mabel exclaimed. "Man, don't you guys know me at all? Would I actually believe that five little creatures was a dreamy Goth guy? Would I go on dates with a little psychopath two years younger than me? Would I kidnap a boy band and hold them hostage in my bedroom?"

"What are you talking about?" Mom demanded.

"Uh—possible story plots that Dipper's talked over with me," Mabel said hastily. "Not anything that really _happened!_ As if!" She coughed. "OK, Dip will be home in half an hour. Let me show you my plans. I think we'll have a table set up with those tri-fold science-fair foam display boards."

"What for?" her dad asked.

"Pictures of Dip! I got caboodles of pictures of Broseph doing things that are real accomplishments—showing off the Woodpecker Trap Tree he discovered for Grunkle Ford, decked out as Mr. Mystery once when he had to sub for Grunkle Stan, in costume for a retro dance, first dance he ever went to when he danced with somebody other than me, him playing the guitar at a campfire, him writing his book, just tons of pictures. I'll download a bunch onto a flash drive and Dad can print them out for me at the Kwikety Clikety Photo shop and we'll pick the best ones. Then we'll get Wendy to take Dipper out for a run on Friday morning. We'll set up the displays all over the big parlor in the Shack, I'll cook a fantabulous breakfast—"

"Maybe we'll help with that," said Dad, who knew the quality of Mabel's culinary expertise.

"OK, OK, point taken," Mabel said. "Anyhoo, when Dip gets in, we'll be waiting with a big old 'Surprise!' and then we'll celebrate his accomplishments."

She propped up a sketch pad on which she had written H.A.P.P.Y. Using a pencil as a pointer, she said, "Our goal will be to make Dipper finally feel HAPPY about himself! That stands for "High-quality, Accepted, Pleasant, Plucky, Yes We Love Dipper!"

"Sounds like a Mabel plan," Dad said, nodding.

"It is _such_ a Mabel plan! And we'll give Dipper positive reinforcement and support and by the end of the party, he'll be upbeat and cheerful and optimistic, just like me!"

Mom glanced at Dad with a do-we-really-want-another-Mabel expression.

"We're behind you," Dad assured his daughter. "Dipper is lucky to have such a thoughtful sister."

"You bet he is!" Mabel said. "OK, we've got fifteen days to plan this thing out, and then I'll start getting everything put together when we get to Gravity Falls. We'll put this show on the road on the morning of Friday, November 27th, we'll make Dipper feel like the hero he is!"

"You talked us into it," Mom said. And for a change she was smiling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Meanwhile**

 **(November 6, 2015)**

* * *

Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own individual way.

Most families, however, are very like the Pineses (I know, that looks wrong, but it's right, trust me). Sometimes they're happy and everything is all love and roses and unicorns—well, not them so much, but you get the gist—and sometimes everyone just wants to go off to his or her own room and pout. And meals, don't get me started on meals, with the lowered glowering eyes, and the grunts and the frowns. It's enough to give you indigestion.

But then for the Pines family (I did that for those of you who are still saying, "Pineses? Who says _Pineses_?") for most of the time, like that day in November, life ran along on a pretty even keel, nobody yelling, nobody hugging. And at least for that Friday, Alex and Wanda and Mabel and even Dipper were cheerful, all things considered, and they jogged along together in decent harmony, each of them probably thinking about the coming Thanksgiving visit to Gravity Falls.

Let's leave them there for a while and check in on some other people in some other places, shall we?

Yeah, yeah, it's a slow burn, deal with it.

Huh? What fourth wall?

* * *

 _Winnemunka, Minnesota_ : At seven A.M. the sun is just a promise of pale light on the eastern horizon. Night still lies over the landscape like a black blanket spangled with a few silvery stars and leaking patches of dark-gray cotton clouds. They had done their duty before midnight, but had produced only a sprinkle. The temperature had bottomed out at 35 degrees, so the droplets hadn't frozen.

The Niemeyer house, a two-story Craftsman-style structure that had been built in 1927 from a Sears and Roebuck kit—no, really, you picked out one you liked from the catalog, paid about $2,800, and they sent you everything you needed, lumber and all—had originally gone up as a farm house.

The farmlands had mostly vanished, with housing developments taking over the acreage, and now the Niemeyer bungalow stood on its on half-acre lot, with twenty-four cottages to its left and a larger subdivision on the right. Across the highway, though, a stubborn holdout farmer still raised corn. A whole field of dry stalks rattled damply in the cold win right across from Eloise Niemeyer's second-floor bedroom window.

She liked it. Liked watching it change through the seasons. Soon the stalks would be plowed under, the dark ground would lie furrowed and fallow until late April, when the seeds would go in. Then in a month the brown earth would vanish beneath the growing green leaves and the spreading pumpkin vines—pumpkins and corn get on well together—and by late July the sweet corn would be ready for first harvest. Then would come late summer, the drying fall when the stalks turned yellow, and the Halloween time of clean-plucked pumpkin vines and whispery rustles as the cooling wind scraped skeletal fingers through the stalks.

Whatever.

At seven that Friday morning, Eloise and her dad and mom settled down to breakfast together. Mr. Ernst Niemeyer, as usual, scanned the morning paper, the _St. Cloud Times_ , and occasionally grumbled that the country was going down the drain. He was a bank auditor, which gave him a pessimistic view of life and people. His wife, Darlene, had the same light-brown hair as her daughter and was more laid-back. "One cup of coffee," she warned her daughter.

"Mom, I'm seventeen," Eloise complained.

"Listen to your mother," her dad said.

Rolling her eyes, Eloise put the coffee carafe back in the Master Coffee machine and instead glugged some milk into her cup. She sat down and sipped it. "I can't wait for break," she said.

Her father put the paper down. "Is everything all right at school?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's OK."

"It's not school, it's Jason," Mrs. Niemeyer told her husband.

"Oh, him. Well, I never liked him anyway. Eloise can do better."

"It's one of those things," Mom agreed.

"I hate it when you talk over me like that," Eloise said mildly.

"Sorry," her dad said. "So—any other guys besides Jason in your life?"

"Not right now," she said. She sipped her milk. "Do you remember that time we went out west and you guys let me tour the Westminster House on my own? The boy I kind of teamed up with?"

"Vaguely," her mom said. Her dad merely went "hmm."

"He wore this really strange fur cap," Eloise reminded them. "His name was Dipper."

"Weird name," her dad said. "First name or last name?"

"First. His last was Pines."

"Don't really remember him," her dad said.

"He told me how to get rid of the ghost in the basement," she said. "Well, he told me where to find the instructions, I mean."

"There was no ghost in our basement," Mr. Niemeyer said firmly.

"Was, too," she said. "I saw her. And I exorcised her."

"I don't want ghosts on the treadmill," her father said, picking up the paper again and looking at it, not her.

"Not exercised. Ex-OR-cised. Set her free. Lucky ghost."

"Eloise," her mom said tolerantly, "you'll be away at college before you know it. See how you like freedom then. Don't try to grow up too fast on us."

"Sorry," Eloise said. "Anyway, I got in touch with Dipper again. We emailed and then we talked on the phone."

"That's nice," her dad murmured. He was into the financial section of the paper.

"He asked me to run away from home and go to live in California with him," Eloise said. "He wants to start a hippie commune dedicated to free love. And nudism."

"Have a good time," her mom said.

They both broke out laughing. Her father, fixated on a column forecasting interest rates, merely murmured, "Mm, OK."

Mrs. Niemeyer put her hand on her daughter's. "He didn't seriously—"

"No, Mom," Eloise said. "He's too shy for that kind of talk, and he has a girlfriend already. But it was good to chat with him. Too bad he's so far away. And too young for me. I seriously think he's good boyfriend material." She finished her milk. "Better than any boyfriend I've had yet, anyhow. I'm gonna go brush my teeth, then drive in to school. You guys be careful on the roads."

"You too," her mother said. There had recently been a fatal crash just down where the county road crossed the highway. They hadn't known the couple, a middle-aged pair named Bunden, but the wreck had been unnervingly close to home, the result of an inattentive semi driver running a stop sign and T-boning a compact car.

Eloise had half-formed plans of checking the intersection out some night.

Just to make sure no ghosts were lingering there.

Because, unlike her parents, she believed.

* * *

In Gravity Falls, at the same time—well, not the _same_ time, because Oregon's on Pacific Time, and in Gravity Falls the hour was five in the morning—and in the Gnomes' main winter assembly hall, which was an artificial cavern about a foot below the frost line and directly under the Gravity Falls town dump—a hoarse Jeff got to the end of the book: ". . . This Mystery Diary told me there was nobody in Granite Rapids I could trust. But when you battle a hundred Gnarls side by side with someone, you realize they've probably always got your back. The End."

About half of the thirty or so children (Gnomes under the age of thirty-seven) had nodded off, but the rest, along with the adults, were all bright-eyed. "That story is so rad," one of them, Jeff's nephew Mikey, said. He hung out under the Mystery Shack a lot and tended to pick up slang from Soos.

"Shmebulock!" said Shmebulock.

Jeff chuckled. "I know you like that part," he said. Shmebulock was referring to the Gnarl named "Mishpomock," who never said anything but his own name. In the book, he was also the one who barfed in rainbow colors.

"Who made that talking paper thing?" asked Carson. He had attended every reading and had always listened intently.

"It says Stan X. Mason on the front," Jeff told them. "But that's a false name. I happen to know it was really Stanford Pines!"

"But," Carson said, wrinkling his brow in concentration, "the tale is so much like that time when we did the stack-up and pretended to be Normal Man. The Stanford wasn't here then, was he? How does he know about all that?"

Jason said, "Humans have weird powers! They know our thoughts!"

"No, no, no," Jeff said. "Remember, the Stanford Pines is the father's father's brother of Mabel. Mabel told him the story, obviously, and he put it to sleep in this talking paper thing, so we could wake it up now and then and live it over."

Apologies for the odd wording. The Gnome language is like that. Jeff could speak better English than most of the others, and some of the others knew hardly any human language beyond "What the hell is that thing? Kill it! Yaaah!," which they assumed was a ritual human greeting when one met a Gnome.

Anyway, the Gnomish impulse when one of them encounters something new is to make up a name for it out of Gnomish words. For example, in their language a refrigerator is a winter box. As for "father's father's brother," Gnome relationships are so extremely complex that sometimes describing a relative takes up to five minutes.

The Gnomes smiled and nodded at Jeff's explanation. It made sense to them. Telling stories was an ancient Gnomish tradition, and it struck them that learning how to make the marks was one way of giving stories a life of their own. Surprisingly, the one who asked the crucial question first was—

"Shmebulock?"

"Huh?" Jeff said, a little surprised. "Sure, I guess. I can teach you how to read human words."

About half of the conscious kids asked if they could learn, too. And just as surprising as Shmebulock, Steve—a stolid, unimaginative Gnome—asked, "Could the marks that make up the words—"

"Letters," Jeff said. "The human name for the marks is letters."

"Could the—" Steve frowned. "Could the lettuce be used to mark down Gnome words, too?"

"Huh," Jeff said. "I never thought about that. Wait."

He took a charred stick from the fire and went to the wall. Carefully, because writing was new to him, he started to scratch lines onto the stone: GNOMZ. That was a transcription of the word the Gnomes had for themselves—humans would hear it pronounced as gahnomfs. But since _gahnomf_ sort of coincided with the pronunciation of the human word gnome, that was what they called them, and the Gnomes just figured all humans were a little bit stupid.

"That's us," Jeff said, pointing to the charcoal marks. "Gnomes. It can be done."

"If we steal some paper—" Steve began.

"Ah-ah-ah! We don't steal!" Jeff reminded him. "Not anymore. We're businessmen now. We buy."

"Or scavenge," Flip, the Gnome who was in overall charge of their garbage-removal service, put in. "We get all kinds of paper in the trash we collect. Lot of it not even with marks on it."

The Gnomes murmured. Humans were notorious for that—throwing away perfectly good things that the Gnomes then scavenged and made use of, like a portable TV that, once connected to electricity and to a cable spliced into someone's satellite, gave them three hundred channels of entertainment that fascinated them even though the speakers didn't work at all.

It was in a distant burrow they called the lounge. The Gnomes were especially fond of animated cartoons, and the lack of sound didn't matter because they made up their own dialogue as they watched.

But paper—in abundance, really, and even the kind that already had marks on it often had them only on one side—meant they had material to write on, and they could trade with the Lilliputtians for an unlimited supply of Gnome-sized pencils.

Before he really knew what was going on, Jeff had agreed to teach ten Gnomes how to read and write both English and Gnomish. "Then," he said, "each of you can teach ten others, whoever wants to learn."

Thus Stan X. Pines—Dipper, though the Gnomes didn't know that yet—indirectly became the Father of Gnome Education.

And he didn't know that yet, either.

* * *

Speaking of education—up on the surface—

Stanford finished a long telephone conversation at eleven A.M. and drove over to the library to pick up Lorena for lunch. They drove outside the Valley, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Stanford pulled over unexpectedly, parking on a paved driveway that ended at a chain-link gate. "Why are you stopping here?" Lorena asked.

He got out of the car, came around, and opened the passenger door for her. "What do you think of this place?" he asked, leading her to the tall fence.

Inside it sat an abandoned building. It had once been the Coote River Community High School, but five years earlier the county had consolidated three small high schools, and since then the brick building had remained empty. It looked OK, no broken windows or evidence of vandalism, no graffiti, just a sort of dusty, shabby appearance.

"Is this-?" Lorena asked.

"I just spoke to someone with the Agency," Ford said carefully. The first rule of the Agency was that if you talked about the Agency, you did so in a way that told outsiders nothing about the Agency. "They have a chance to buy this place cheap. It will do as a start. I envision inviting a few colleagues to take on teaching duties—no more than five. And no more than a hundred graduate students for the first class. Our admissions policy will have to be stringent."

"Will this be big enough?" Lorena asked. The brick building really wasn't terribly impressive, only as large as a medium-sized supermarket.

"It has twenty classrooms, a library, and the gymnasium can be converted into an assembly room and offices," Stanford said. "Once renovated, it will do for a modest start. And forty acres comes with the building, so there will be room for expansion later on. Of course, this was a high school, so as I say, some remodeling will be in order. But this _is_ a good spot—twelve miles from Gravity Falls, not inside the weirdness field, but close enough for investigations."

"What are you going to call it?"

"Formally, it will be the Institute of Anomalous Sciences," Stanford said. He smiled. "But I think informally, we'll call it the Institute of Oddology!"

"I like it," Lorena said.

"Then after lunch, I'll call the proper office and tell them if they'll put through the sale and arrange for renovations during the spring, we'll be ready for launch by September of next year."

She kissed him. "I'm proud of you, Ford."

Embracing her, he said quietly, "Thank you, darling. But just between us, I'm petrified. I've never overseen an educational facility before. I feel—I don't know, like—like—"

"An impostor," she said.

"Yes. Exactly. This has been one of my dreams, but—what if I'm not man enough to make it real?"

She kissed him again. "You're man enough for anything."

They went on to enjoy their lunch, and afterward, Ford made the call and gave the go-ahead.

And not without qualms.

Not without qualms.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: A Little Romance**

 **(November 6, 2015)**

* * *

To love, and to be loved, that is all, that is enough. A wise man will ask nothing further of life. Love is the one gem that shines in the dark folds of a dreary world.

Or that was what the novel the juniors were reading in English class proclaimed. It was a point that Dipper had to mull over, and he pondered it that week. It helped him get through some bad moments.

Because it made him think of Wendy.

With that and with the ordinary busy-ness of school, by Friday Dipper started to think the whole uproar over the book was blowing over. Miss Geer apparently had kept her word, and no one knew that he was the mysterious Stan Mason. The book jacket gave nothing away—in fact, it hinted that the author lived in Oregon, not California, and it gave no hint of his age other than he was "a fresh new voice with funny and thrilling tales to tell."

Other than that, the bio was sketchy—Stan, like Alexis Palms in the book, had a sister and enjoyed science fiction, fantasy, and bad movies. He loved long walks or runs in the great outdoors, and he was already working on a new book. No author photo—instead, the publisher had the cute idea of a dark silhouette of (Dipper supposed) some tousle-headed twenty-something male model with a white question mark superimposed on the face.

It made him feel strange, though, when he saw two freshmen girls coming out of the school library, both carrying copies of the book. OK, it supposedly was recommended for ten- to thirteen-year-olds, but whatever. One of the girls had the book open and was chuckling at it, a good sign.

No track practice on Fridays, so he rode the school bus to the corner of their street. Mabel, driving the fluorescent green Helen Wheels, was right behind the bus, and as the bus drove on, she braked, rolled down the passenger window, and called, "Hey, young man, want a lift to the house?"

He remembered her old hamster-ball fantasy and said, "Sorry, sis. You can look but you can't pick me up."

"Bleaahhh!" She stuck her tongue out at him, stepped on the accelerator, and, of course, beat him home. He came in, said hi to his mom, and went upstairs to dump his backpack. The clock said it was only 3:40, too early to call Wendy, who would be on duty in the Shack until six—she was doing a split shift, nine to nearly eleven, then school, then two-fifteen to six every day. Socking away that salary for college.

Feeling antsy, he changed into his running shoes and told his mom he was going to jog to the park and would be back in an hour. "As long as you're back for dinner," she said, smiling. "Oh, Dipper—I think your book is really funny. I'm sorry it took so long for me to read it."

To his surprise, she hugged him. The Pines family wasn't big on hugs, except for Mabel, who would hug anything from a fireplug to a startled aardvark (one of many reasons why she was banned for life from the petting zoo). "Thanks, Mom," he said.

She kept her hands on his shoulders, looking into his face. "You're so much like your father was in college," she murmured. "I don't say it enough, I guess, but I love you."

"Love you too, Mom," Dipper said. "I'll be back by five!"

The afternoon had turned sunny and warm for November—about 67 degrees, Dipper guessed—with low humidity and a fresh breeze. He had to be careful crossing the streets because the local drivers had a habit of remembering something vital just as they left their driveways and whipping out their cell phones. Using handheld phones and driving was illegal in California, but somehow the locals seemed to believe that didn't count when you're in your own neighborhood.

In the park he saw more phone-aholics, lots of them walking around talking and gesticulating, and until you glimpsed the Bluetooth earpieces you couldn't be sure whether they were socially connected or just crazy. Sometimes, Dipper suspected, they were both at once. He ran at an easy pace, not as intense as he would have had Wendy been there to coach him, but a tension-relieving stride that let him wind down from an uncomfortable week of worry and undeserved feelings of guilt.

By the time he headed back out of the park, he felt better than he had all week. Sunday would bring a new edition of the _National Times Book Review_ , and Dipper felt sure that _Bride of the Zombie_ would topple from the number one spot. He hoped it wouldn't vanish completely—maybe go down to second or third on the list, preferably no lower—but, as he had told Mabel, he still believed that Halloween had spiked the sales.

He waved at Billy and his two sisters as he jogged past the Pineses' old house—they were getting in the car with their folks, maybe off to dinner and a movie or something, which was a kind of family Friday-evening ritual with them. Dipper got home, stopped at the front door to take off his running shoes (sometimes he tracked in grass clippings if he didn't), and went inside.

His dad was home, sitting in the living room, watching a news show on TV. "Hi, Mason," he said. "How—"

Dipper, shoes in hand, plopped down on the sofa next to him. "School was fine, Dad. Hey—I know you must've talked Mom into reading _Bride of the Zombie._ Thanks, man."

"I just suggested it," Alex said with a smile. "She enjoyed reading it. She kept laughing out loud and reading parts to me."

"Well—I'm glad she liked it," Dipper said.

The newscaster on TV said, "And in Colorado, school officials are concerned about a massive outbreak of sexting among high-school-aged students."

Dipper jumped up from the sofa. "Gonna go shower."

He stopped at the kitchen door. "I'm home, Mom. I'm going to take a shower and then I'll come down and help if you want."

She was at the stove, but she smiled and shook her head. "Nothing for you to do, Dipper. Pot roast, salad, mashed potatoes, and that bean casserole you don't like. Apple pie for dessert."

"I like the casserole," Dipper said. "Just not as much as Mabel does!"

He heard water running in the bathroom upstairs. He grabbed a towel from the linen closet and mopped his sweaty face. He hung the trapper's hat in his closet—it would have been a lot cooler to run without it, but since the school didn't permit him to wear it, he donned it anytime he was out on his own.

Then he waited in the hall, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, until the door opened and Mabel, swathed in two towels—one for the hair and one for the bod—came out humming, bringing with her a fragrance of coconut-lime sugar scrub. "Broseph!" she said. "Was I hogging the bathroom?"

"No biggie," he said, getting up. "I just went for a run, that's all. Why are you—"

"This girl's got a date tonight!" she announced cheerfully. "Mark Kemper's taking me to the movies!"

"You're kidding." Mark Kemper was a senior, a football player, and a guy who had no volume control. "What about, you know, Teek?"

"We're not _exclusive_ ," Mabel said. "Besides, it's _The Last Witch Hunter._ The kind of movie Teek wouldn't take me to."

"Well," Dipper said, "watch yourself, that's all. I hear Mark gets sort of aggressive."

"Nothing I can't handle," Mabel said. "Anyway, this is our first date, so things wouldn't get _too_ hot, anyhow. Gotta go dry my hair before it sets in this shape. Bathroom's all yours, Brobro!"

Dipper showered—the stall still smelled strongly of coconut and lime—and then dried himself and dressed. By the time he came downstairs, Mabel was there already, dressed for the date—and he wished she had dressed more. Not that her outfit was outrageously daring or anything, but she was wearing a soft-looking short-sleeved sweater, pale pink, with roses embroidered on it, plus a culotte skirt, black, and instead of her usual flats, platform shoes. At least she had a light jacket hung over the back of her chair—so her arms would be covered.

She caught him looking at her shoes. "Hey," she said, "Mark's nearly six feet tall! I don't want him to feel like he's dating a Lilliputtian!"

"The movie ends at nine-thirty," Mom said. "You will be back by ten."

"Yes, Mom!" Mabel said, rolling her eyes. "Sheesh, it's just a movie!"

"Keep it that way," Dad suggested with a smile.

They ate, and as Dipper helped his mom clear the table and stack the dishwasher, Mark showed up. Dipper, loading the silverware at the sink, heard his booming voice: "Hi, Mabel! You look pretty!"

"Thanks!" Mabel said, not as loud. "Let's go! I wanna see the coming attractions!"

"He's got all the charm of a Gremloblin," Dipper muttered.

"A what?" Mrs. Pines asked.

"Nothing. Imaginary monster I'm thinking of putting in a book," Dipper said.

With the dishes done, he went up to his room. Fifteen past seven. It was his turn to call Wendy, so he decided he'd wait another fifteen minutes. Manly Dan got unhappy if she hadn't finished clearing the dinner things before getting on the phone, but fortunately the Corduroys ate early. Seven-thirty was always safe.

And sharp at seven-thirty, she answered the phone, and he saw her smiling at him from his phone screen. "Hi, Magic Girl," he said. "Can you talk?"

"Sure thing, Big Dipper. Dad and the boys just drove off to the bowling alley in Mott."

"That's a new one, isn't it?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, just opened, they're gonna check it out. Man, I wish you were here tonight! Just checked the TV schedule, and _Nearly Almost Dead but Not Quite IV: The Return of the Return of the Strangelings_ is on. S'posed to be the absolute worst of the series. When it first came out, those two guys on TV gave it eight thumbs down. They had to use their big toes!"

"I'm sorry to miss that!" Dipper said, chuckling.

"Hey, man, you feeling better?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Dipper said. When Wendy raised a skeptical eyebrow, he added, "Except I'm kind of worried about Mabel."

Shaking her head and smiling, Wendy said, "Tell me about it, then. Go ahead and dump."

"Uh—I'll unload instead," Dipper said. "If that's OK."

"That's my writer," Wendy teased. "Always going for _le mot juste_."

"Are you taking French?" Dipper asked, surprised.

"College French, introductory. When you get here for Thanksgiving, we'll have a conversation in _le langage de l'amour_."

" _Magnifique_ ," Dipper said, and from there the conversation just got better.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Weekend**

 **(November 7, 2015)**

* * *

Sometimes I think of that first time Willow kissed me, and then I begin to worry that it never happened except in a wonderful dream. –Dipper Pines, "Notes for a future novel"

* * *

Mabel got in at 9:55, so Mom couldn't complain, except the next morning she did observe that if Mabel kept eating half an apple pie every night before bed, her figure would pay for it. As usual, Dipper woke early and went for a jog before anyone else was stirring. The weather was cooler, in the high thirties, and he wore sweat pants and a thick Piedmont High sweatshirt. And the fur trapper's hat.

Always with the hat.

He got back home close to seven A.M. The sun had just come up, and everything was painted orangey-pink with early daylight. He stopped at the door, took off his running shoes, and came in to hear someone clinking around the kitchen. It was Mabel, up early for a change, brewing coffee. "Morning," she said, stifling a gigantic yawn. "How was the run?"

"Fine," he said. "How was your date?"

"He was a perfect gentleman," Mabel said. "Damn it."

"Mabel!"

She grinned. "What did you think, we were gonna shack up at the Rusty Roof Motel? Nah. Movie was just OK. We didn't even hold hands or kiss goodnight. What're you doing?"

Dipper had opened the fridge. He emerged with a carton of eggs and some cheese. "Gonna have breakfast. Want some scrambled eggs?"

"What kind of cheese?"

"Cheddar, I think. Here, sniff it."

She unwrapped the block of cheese and broke off a corner to pop in her mouth. "Yup, mild cheddar. OK, Brobro, one order of scrambled and cheese. You want toast?"

"Two slices," he said as she opened the breadbox.

"M'kay," she murmured. "Huh, just five-grain left. Mom has to go shopping today. Five-grain OK?"

"Sure. How many eggs?"

"Two for me, thanks. We've got about one glass of OJ left. Want to split it?"

"Yeah, fine."

Dipper scrambled four eggs, cutting in a couple of ounces of cheese, while Mabel toasted the bread and got plates down. She also poured them two cups of coffee. Dipper plated the eggs and toast, took the plates to the table, and went back for butter and cream.

"So," he said, settling down as Mabel slathered butter on her toast, "how would you rate Mark Kemper as a date?"

She shrugged. "Good, not great. All he could talk about was how Vin Diesel is so ripped. Tell the truth, I think Mark was more interested in that guy's bod than mine." She sighed. "I miss Teek. He's got his limits, but I can talk to him about anything. Man, I can't wait until Thanksgiving. Here you go." She pushed the butter dish and knife to him.

"Did you leave any?" he asked.

"Little bit. I feel down this morning, Brobro. Don't know why. Last night, I dreamed about the day I won Waddles. He was like my soul mate! Now he and I are just friends. Remember Soos used to take the phone out to the sty every night so I could sing him a lullaby? When did I stop doing that?"

"Dunno," Dipper said. "Last year sometime, I guess. Back in the spring."

"Yeah," she said. "And whatever happened to Knuckles?"

"Didn't Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford dump him in the Pacific when they went on their voyage?" Dipper asked.

"Mm, good eggs, Broseph. Oh, yeah, that's right. Hope he found a nice lady lobster."

"Are you sure Knuckles was a he?"

"Fifty-fifty chance."

Back when she was twelve, Mabel had gone on a date with Gideon Gleeful at a time when he was under the influence of an Amulet of Telekinesis—an artifact that Stanford had received from Bill Cipher and that he had tied with a ribbon to Journal 2, which Gideon had discovered. The Amulet let Gideon perform some real-life magic . . . but Bill had intended it to corrupt Stanford, and it had made Gideon something of a psychopath.

Anyway, Gideon had taken Mabel to The Club (Le Club, if one were feeling snooty) and she had ordered lobster for the first time ever. When the waiter had told her that he would have it cooked, she wanted it just as it was, and she brought it home live and named it Knuckles. For a long time, Knuckles had moped in the big fish tank, but finally Grunkle Ford had suggested he, or she, would be happier if released into the ocean, and just before they boarded the bus that summer, Mabel had asked him to see to it.

What Dipper couldn't figure out was why Knuckles was red. Normally, lobsters in the wild ranged from black to green to brown and rarely to white and even blue, but only cooked lobsters were red. Knuckles must have been a mutation.

Anyway, he wasn't cuddly, and Mabel had never really bonded with him. . . pigs as pets she could get on board with, but lobsters had a certain crusty aloofness.

Dipper drained his approximately three ounces of orange juice. "Why do you feel down?" he asked Mabel. "Just a couple weeks, and we're off to the Falls. You and Teek can have a romantic reunion. You ought to be happy."

"I know, I know," Mabel said. Though she sounded depressed, she ate with her normal appetite. "It's just, I don't know. School's fine, I've got friends, I love driving myself places, but—oh, I don't know. I feel like we're on the edge of something, and I don't know what it is. Does that make sense?"

"I guess," Dipper said. "Hey, you know, up in Oregon we can have teen passengers when we're sixteen and a half, not seventeen."

That perked Mabel up a little. "Yeah, so next summer in Gravity Falls, we can get a jump on going places together."

"Or you can even drive Teek's car."

"Hey . . . that's right! And you can drive the Green Machine!"

"Already have," Dipper said, finishing his eggs.

"Wha-a-at?" Mabel asked, giving him a squint-eyed glare of challenge.

"I've driven Wendy's car several times," Dipper said.

"I know there was that one emergency time—wait, you? Dipper Pines? The boy too young for a license? Mr. Listy Thing? Mr. 'We gotta go by the rules?'"

"The rules are different in Gravity Falls," he said, grinning.

"I think I got it now," Mabel said slowly.

"Got what?"

"Why I'm down in the dumps. You were upset all week. Now you look cheerful. We're mood-swapping! When you feel happy, I feel sad! It's a twin thing!"

"No, it isn't," Dipper said. "It's just, I don't know . . . life, I guess." He got up and collected her plate and glass. She was lingering over her coffee, so he left her cup and poured himself another half-cup as he rinsed the dishes in the sink. He sat down again. "So, you going to date Mark again?"

"Nope," Mabel said. "No spark there. I mean, I didn't want a make-out session or anything, but he didn't even hold hands. I told you that already, didn't I?" She yawned. "I'm still sleepy."

"Have a lazy Saturday," Dipper suggested. "Call Teek before he goes in to work at the Shack."

"Yeah, good idea," Mabel said, smiling. "We can make some plans for Thanksgiving—uh-oh, I'm getting all Dippy-Dipper! You're a bad influence. What're you gonna do today?"

"Practice my guitar. Maybe write a little. Later I'll offer to drive Mom to Trader Joe's for her shopping."

"Take her car."

Dipper gave an exasperated sigh. "No, I'm gonna take our car. Seriously, Mabel, you drive it like ninety per cent of the time!"

"Helen needs me," Mabel said.

"Today? Where are you planning to go?"

"Nowhere, but if I get the sudden urge to travel—"

"You can do it after Mom and I get back with the groceries," Dipper finished for her.

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Oh, all right."

"Give me your cup."

Rather than clutter up the dishwasher with their few plates, the pan, and utensils, Dipper washed them in the sink, and Mabel came and dried. "You're gonna make Wendy a great wife, Brobot," Mabel teased. "You cook, you do dishes. Hey, when you, you know, do it, which one's gonna be on top?"

Dipper gave her a long look. "We'll flip for it," he said drily. "You know, if Mom heard you say that, she'd have a serious heart attack."

"Meh, all the girls at school talk about it. Do guys ever talk about it?"

Dipper thought of times in the locker room. "Occasionally," he said, understating the case by an order of magnitude.

"Do you?"

"No." He put away the last cup. "No, I never do," he said. "That would be . . . wrong. I couldn't even look Wendy in the face if I did something like that. Never."

Mabel patted his cheek. "Good. Stay sweet."

"I will, if you'll lay off dating random seniors," Dipper said. "Is Teek seeing other girls?"

Now she looked mad. "He'd better not be!"

"See?" Dipper said.

"Yeah, but it's different with girls," Mabel objected. "And I even think it'd be good if Teek got, you know, a little jealous now and then. He's too even-tempered, that's his problem. I thought the Irish were supposed to be all like emo about everything! Passionate! Like a leprechaun!"

"Stereotyping," Dipper said. "Wait, what? Leprechaun?"

"Aren't they passionate?"

"I think they're green," Dipper said.

"That can't be easy."

That one flew right past Dipper. "Leprechauns are like the cobblers for all the fairies. And they hide pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, I think. According to legend. So if they're passionate, I guess it's about shoes and money."

"So leprechauns are Kardassians."

Dipper shook his head. "Anyway, don't stereotype."

"Yeah, I suppose that's bad," Mabel said.

"How was the movie?" Dipper asked as they walked upstairs to their rooms.

She shrugged. "So-so. I've seen better, I've seen worse. You wouldn't have liked it."

Which was probably true. Weekly sessions of watching excruciatingly bad movies with Wendy had led Dipper to become a critical viewer. He'd begun to notice—even in good movies—inconsistencies, errors ("Hey, in the last shot his shirt collar was buttoned!"), and flubs. Mabel complained that he nit-picked, and he replied that when a studio spent millions of dollars on making a movie, they should be careful to get it right. That was something they'd probably never settle.

Anyway, later that morning Dipper went grocery shopping with Mom, him at the wheel of the insistently chartreuse Carino. As soon as they had left, Mabel reminded Dad that they needed to get some photos printed, and she talked him into letting her drive his car. When they dropped off the USB memory stick and Mabel said she wanted all the photos on it printed, eight by tens, Dad turned a little pale at the clerk's price estimate. He talked her down to five by sevens, which was still steep. Sixty photos added up.

"OK, guys," the kid at the counter said, working out the sum on a calculator, "these'll be ready Wednesday noon, unless you want rush service, which will cost—"

"Wednesday will be fine," Mr. Pines said firmly. He pre-paid with his credit card.

"Thank you for your patronage," the kid said, giving him the receipt.

"Gimme, gimme," Mabel said, snatching it from him. "I'll come in after school on Wednesday to pick 'em up!"

"I don't think so," her dad told her. "First, traffic's horrible right through here in the afternoon, and second, I can just swing off the freeway on the way home from work and stop by with no trouble." He took the receipt back from her.

"Aw. . ."

"You can drive your car to school," he said. "You know, you really should let Mason drive it now and then."

"I'm letting him go grocery shopping in it!" she shot back. "That's humiliating for a car as spirited as Helen!"

Her dad just shook his head as they left the photo shop. "Are you really going to use all sixty of those pictures?" he asked as they got back into the car, he in the passenger seat, she behind the wheel.

"Who knows?" she said. "I just put all my Dipper pics into one folder. And there's sixty-three, to be exact. I'll sort through for the most embarrassing ones for the party!"

Mr. Pines said, "About the party. Have you talked to—"

"Yeah, yeah, I called, and Grunkle Stan and Soos are on board one million per cent with this!" Mabel said. "Buckle up, Dad!"

Alex Pines fastened his seat belt. "Take it easy this time," he said. "Check your surroundings before you back out of a parking slot."

"Roger that!" She did check, but she backed out with great, um, alacrity, making her father grip the armrest hard. "Let's take the long way home!" she suggested, making a left turn so they really had no choice.

"You really like driving," her dad said, starting to breathe again.

She laughed. "Hey, birds gotta swim, fish gotta fly, Mabel's born to drive!"

Dad said, "If you're referring to the song, you got that first part backwards."

"Who cares? Shake things up! Swim, you stupid birds. Swim!" Mabel said. She felt happy at that moment.

Which was a good thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Looking Forward**

 **(November 10, 2015)**

* * *

 _The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again._

Dipper, who had read _Nicholas Nickleby_ for extra credit in English—he was still too young to realize that the students who performed heroic tasks like reading a huge Victorian novel when they didn't have to were exactly the students who did not need extra credit—had been struck by that line and had jotted it down in his latest journal.

He felt that the statement was true. He had been parted from Wendy for over two months now, and he missed her every second of every minute of every hour of every day—you know how it is.

Oh, sure, being parted in the 21st century wasn't very much like being parted in Charles Dickens's day. In 2015 two people in love and yet apart could face-time and text and talk on the phone, could do everything but touch and kiss and so on. Back in 1825, or whenever _Nicholas Nickleby_ was set, the most the lovers could do was to write long, anguished letters and wait maybe two weeks or a month for a long, anguished reply.

But, 19th century or 21st, feelings are feelings, and easier communication didn't really make being separated by hundred of miles feel any cheerier or blunt the pain of not being together. Instead of brooding on that, Dipper concentrated on the future, not the past or present.

He'd asked his dad about the airline tickets, and Alex had replied, "As it happens, I found out online that Coast Connections Airline is having a sale for twelve hours on Friday. It'll be about 25% cheaper if we get in and score the tickets then. Sale starts at nine A.M., so I'll order them from my desk at work first thing. Got my phone app set to remind me."

Well, there was that. Dipper had really rather spend the money and be sure of the tickets, but 25% was a decent savings. And then when the tickets had been bought, there would be one more long week after Friday, and by evening of the next Friday—together again!

"Can't wait," he told Wendy when they face-timed that evening.

"Same here," she said. She was lying in bed, her red hair tousled on the pillows that propped her up. "Oh, hey, would you believe we've sold, like, four dozen copies of your book in the Shack?"

"No!" Dipper said.

"Yeah, man! Soos has another four dozen boxed up in the stockroom for when we run low. Where's it on the best-seller list now?"

"Um . . . number one," Dipper confessed, blushing a little. "Still."

"I figured. Yeah, I think we're keeping it there ourselves," Wendy told him. "Word's got around that Granite Rapids is really based on Gravity Falls, and people here are playing 'Guess Who That Is' while they read the book! Don't worry, though. Everybody's about ninety-nine per cent sure that Stanford wrote it."

"He's OK with that?" Dipper asked.

"Mm, well, when people ask, he just shrugs and looks modest," Wendy said. "Keeps his lip zipped."

"Good thing they don't think it was Grunkle Stan," Dipper said with a chuckle.

Wendy laughed out loud. "I know, right? He'd be, like, showing up for autograph sessions and doing interviews on the talk shows and all!"

Dipper did a gravel-voiced impression: "Here, lemme sign that for ya. Ten—fifteen—no, twenty bucks! For another twenty, I'll personalize it!"

"You nailed him," Wendy said. "Hey, Dip, are you ever gonna do a big reveal?"

"Maybe someday," Dipper said. "Right now, just people who need to know. I did include a copy of my book contract when I sent in my college-application dossiers. I just blanked out the publisher, my agent's name, and the title, that's all. Oh, and the pseudonym, too. But they'll know I've got a published book."

"Nice," Wendy said. "You're already applying to college, man?"

"Well—pre-applications. A few colleges and universities accept pending applications, and I want to cover my bases."

Wendy looked thoughtful. "Huh. Did not know that. Our counselor hasn't sat me down to talk about college yet, 'cause I told her I was putting it off for a year. We're gonna do that in the next week or two, though. Maybe I ought to pre-apply for the same ones you're doing."

"You won't have any trouble getting in anywhere," Dipper said. "You'll have like a year of credits already. Unless you'd rather go to college next fall, instead of—"

"Nope. I'll get a full year in at the community college after I graduate from high school. Not a full load, but a full year. With the credits I already have, that'll let me enter real college as a sophomore. Gonna go with you, man. We've got to be together. And if you get in and I don't, I'm gonna go work in the university kitchen or something."

"Don't say that!" Dipper laughed. "Magic Girl, if you don't get in, I'm not going there, either. We'll just find a school that'll take us. Even if we have to go to Backupsmore University in New Jersey!"

Wendy looked skeptical that there even was such a place. "Never heard of it."

"It's Grunkle Ford's alma mater," Dipper said. "Their motto is 'We Take Anybody!'"

She laughed again. "Sounds so classy."

"Grunkle Ford found out it is what you make it. I checked it out online. It's bigger than it was in his day, and higher up on the rankings. It even took over the campus when CWTI went under in Sacramento."

"California Western Tech?" Wendy guessed.

"Yeah, it had some kind of administrative scandal back in the nineties and folded that campus. Backupsmore West took it over in 1997 and re-opened it. It's a tad more selective than the Jersey branch, and it's a lot more slanted toward STEM. Oh, that's—"

"Science, technology, engineering, and math," Wendy said. "I'm lazy, not dumb!"

"I'll be so glad to see you," Dipper said.

On his phone screen, she gave her endearing lop-sided smile. "I'm buying all the peppermint candy off the shelves," she confided in a husky whisper.

"Can't wait to taste it," Dipper said.

They went on talking, though it was nearly eleven.

* * *

Across the landing, in her room, Mabel was tapping away on her laptop, designing the big party. She figured a dozen trifold displays, some with photos of Dipper—both embarrassing and adorable, she wasn't prejudiced—and some with, oh, the dust jacket of _Bride of the Zombie,_ the preliminary art for the cover of the scheduled second book, _It Lurked in the Lake_ (the cartoony Alexis and Alexa Palms, in a small boat and flanking the conical shape of Hoss, the handyman, all gazing down into the water as, unseen behind them, the monstrous form of the lake monster Wobblegonker loomed).

And three of the displays would hold clippings of the rave reviews for _Bride of the Zombie._ She'd briefly considered adding a Trifold of Shame for the lukewarm and bad reviews (only two of the latter, literally the only ones she could find), but then thought, "The heck with them. Go with the people who know what they're talking about," so the least positive review she planned to display was one that began, "This new novel is an imaginative and fun fantasy."

She'd wait to select the photos of her brother until the prints came back—she started humming "Some Day My Prints Will Come"—but she considered adding other photos, just for variety. She had copies of the pictures that Dipper had taken of the Woodpecker Trap Tree, and copies of the cover of the science journal that had printed some of them. She had some of the photos he'd taken of the Valley, including one lovely shot looking out over the town toward the cliffs, where a red sun was setting.

Oh, and Dipper did have one photograph of the Gobblewonker, the real-life model for the Wobblegonker (see what he did there?), the one he'd snapped in the cave just before the rocks crushed McGucket's robot's head. It was a little difficult to make out—the light in the cave hadn't been the best—and, after some consideration, she decided against it.

First, the people in Gravity Falls, let alone her parents, were not ready to learn there had been a real something in the lake back in 2012. Second, she didn't want to re-expose Dr. McGucket, now as sane as a gunnysack full of eels and squirrels (as he said himself) to the ridicule he'd suffered as Old Man McGucket, the town kook. And third, over the past summers, she and Dipper had heard six or seven times that people in Gravity Falls still claimed to have sighted the Gobblewonker recently. Whatever they were seeing couldn't be the robot, which McGucket had told them he'd salvaged for parts.

In fact, that possible lake monster was still on Dipper's list of anomalies to investigate, only just not very high up on the list.

"Party games," Mabel mused. "What would be good party games?" Finding her inner Dipperness, she made a list: Heads Up, where someone holds up a card with the name of a celebrity on it—not being able to see it, it's pressed to their forehead—and the others give the card holder one-word clues until time runs out or the cardholder guesses whose name is on the card. Telephone, where someone writes a description of something—Frodo Baggins fighting a giant spider, for example—on the first page, passes it to the next person who reads and flips the description, then draws the scene on the next page, passes it to the next person, who studies the picture and then writes his or her interpretation down—"Someone giving a stick to a bear"—and passing it to the next player, who draws another picture, and on goes the game. Hilarity ensues. Six or seven others.

"This party," Mabel murmured with glee, "is gonna be—what did Wendy use to say? Off the chain!"

* * *

And in their bedroom, Mrs. Pines was saying, "I still think we should have Stanley and Stanford and their wives come here for Thanksgiving."

"You'll give them a great Christmas dinner," Alex Pines said, yawning. "That's enough. Come on, Wanda. Dipper and Mabel love Gravity Falls. Let them have this."

"Yes, and then they'll want to go back up there after Christmas, but Stanley and Stanford will be off on vacations."

"They have other friends," Alex pointed out. "The McGuckets are really nice people, and they say the kids can stay there any time they want to. Soos and Melody would always welcome them—their kids love Mabel."

"I don't understand why Dipper can't make close friends here, the way he's done way up there," Wanda fretted. "I worry about him."

"Honey," Alex said, "being away from home let him get a fresh start. He's always been shy. Kind of timid about making friends. Best thing that ever happened to him, that summer we first sent them up. He blossomed."

"I know," she said. "And I don't begrudge him the music lessons or the track team or even his writing the books. I have to admit, it's a fun read. I see why kids like it. But—he used to be so _serious_ about everything. Now he's more like Mabel."

"Good for him," Alex, who—if we're being truthful—had always favored Mabel, said. "I remember when I worried because Mason was so paranoid. I mean, seriously. He got bullied so much in elementary school, he started to look on everybody as a threat. If you ask me, he took things way _too_ seriously back then. I wouldn't say he's laid back even now, but at least he's not as high-strung and anxious as he was."

"I suppose that's good," she agreed. She sighed. "Am I a bad mother?"

"No," Alex said, pulling her close and kissing her. "You're just trying to avoid the mistakes your mother made. I do the same thing. My dad was sort of like Uncle Ford, very earnest and without much humor. I loved him, but, you know, he was all business-like. Now that I'm a father, I want to be more fun with my kids. I go too far sometimes, I know that. And so do you, honey."

"I guess I do," Wanda said. "I'm trying to be more supportive of Dipper, though. And more tolerant of Mabel." After moments of silence, she added quietly, "I do love them."

"I know you do," Alex told her. He kissed her again.

And that led to more demonstrations of affection.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Coincidentally**

 **(November 11, 2015)**

* * *

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Last night I couldn't sleep for the longest time, but just thought about this whole idea of the impostor syndrome. Maybe I've got a way to get over it. Lucky for me, the second book is already being set in print, and I'll get page proofs by the first of December._

 _I won't try to rewrite anything, just correct any errors I find. If the second book comes out next summer and it's a success, that COULD be a coincidence. Then if I can only do a decent job on book 3, which I'm calling "Wax Man Murdered!" right now, and it does well, too—that couldn't be just coincidence. Could it?_

 _Maybe—if that happens and I write three good ones in a row—I can finally believe that I'm a pretty good writer._

 _Unless, you know, coincidence can really strike more than once._

* * *

A coincidence, someone once said, is God's way of making a pun. Like clichés, coincidences are something writers avoid like the plague.

This was not always the case. A Charles Dickens novel would collapse of its own weight without coincidences propping up the plot, like those timbers shoring up Tom-All-Alone's in _Bleak House_.

And look at poor Jane Eyre, worn out, faint, on the verge of collapse, falling at the very door of a house occupied by cousins she didn't know she had! What are the odds?

Or take Huckleberry Finn, who runs away from home and winds up stranded hundreds of miles away, down the Mississippi River. He's taken in by a farm family who mistake him for a nephew they've never seen who's coming to spend the summer with them. And who is the nephew? Only Huck's BFF, Tom Sawyer! Who'd believe that coincidence?

Even in the movie _Casablanca,_ Rick moans, "Of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine!"

Ah, but today editors tell writers that readers get angry when such coincidences occur in fiction.

That's why those who are wise in the ways of writing tell young writers, "Never, ever, have some amazing coincidence happen in your story. They're OK in real life, but never in fiction."

Funny, in real life coincidences aren't just OK, but they happen all the time. All the doggone time. You think of someone you haven't seen in a year, and within an hour you get a phone call from them. Asking for money, most likely.

How bad can coincidences get? Take this joke, for example:

Two middle-aged Irish guys are in a bar in New York, drinking side by side but not talking to each other. Then one of them starts to weep. The other guy glances over and asks gruffly, "What's wrong with _you_?"

"Ah," says the other one, "'tis times like this I fall to missing my old home in Ireland."

"That's a coincidence," the first one says, slurring his words a little. "I happen to come from Ireland, too."

The second one looks at him woozily. "Sure, and I can tell by your accent! What a wonder, to meet someone from Ireland here! Tell me, what part of the old country are you from?"

The first one makes a face and shakes his head. "Ah, 'tis such a wee unimportant place, you'll never have heard of it."

The second one says, "Oh, come, 'tis so long since I heard an Irish voice, humor me. I'm a countryman of yours, to be sure. Try me."

Warming up a little, the first one says. "If you insist, I come from a small little place called Ballindereen. There, you've never heard of it, I'm sure."

The second one is completely astonished. "Ah, you're joking with me, sure! Ballindereen, do you say? What a coincidence! I come from just outside of there!"

Now a smile breaks out on the first guy's face. "Never tell me that! Do you recall the little school the Sisters ran close by?"

The second one laughs and says, "Remember it! Sure, and I went to school there! Many's the rap on the knuckles I got from Sister Mary Catherine!"

Laughing along with him, the first guy says, "Sister Mary! Sure, and I remember her well! Ah, 'tis a hard confession, but when I went to school with her, my poor brother often got punished for mischief I really did, but he never once ratted on me, God bless his true heart!"

Beginning to break down, the other one says, "Ah, now you make my heart ache, for I had a brother, too! Oh, sometimes here in this big cold city I miss him so much—and my mother and father, too, now old and off there three thousand miles over the sea, God be with them both."

Sobbing a little, the first one lifts his glass. "I miss my mum and dad, too! A drink together! To our families!"

The second one clinks glasses with him. "Ah, what a coincidence to meet someone from my old home town so far away!"

And they down their drinks and then completely break down, hugging each other and crying on each other's shoulders.

Another customer asks the bartender, "What's wrong with those guys?"

"Nothin'," the barkeep says. "It's just the O'Connor twins, drunk again."

Insert rimshot.

* * *

Now, odd though it may seem, coincidence seemed to have it in for Dipper and Mabel that Wednesday. It's like they were innocently and happily walking down a street, and Coincidence, wearing a bandit mask and a striped black-and-white shirt, lounged around a corner, waiting for someone to pass by, holding a sock full of damp sand and chuckling nastily at the thought of slamming a couple of victims over the head with it. Maybe even two kids. And walking carefree right toward the corner, just bopping along, here come Dipper and Mabel.

Coincidence. Here's how it worked: The day before, while he was having lunch Alex Pines got a small ketchup stain on the sleeve of his light blue sports jacket. He didn't even notice it, but that night as she was hanging some shirts in his closet, Wanda did—dark little spot, on the left sleeve near the cuff. She sniffed it. Ketchup.

I mean, she just happened to notice it because Alex had hung it with that sleeve facing out, and she was hanging his shirts on the rod next to the jacket. And there was this little spot, not even dime-sized.

Ketchup.

Therefore, on the next day, Wednesday, around nine o'clock, when the kids were off at school and Alex was off at work, she decided to take the stained coat to the cleaners before the spot set and became ineradicable. She gathered up some other dry cleaning, checked all the pockets (Alex had left ballpoint pens in his pockets to be washed so they could ruin the entire load of laundry at least as many times as his son had accidentally bitten through ballpoint pens), pulled out a slip of paper and glanced at it, and then drove to her usual cleaning service, only to find it CLOSED FOR RENOVATION and workers busy inside re-tiling the floor.

Grunting in irritation, she remembered another dry cleaner a couple of miles away. It was not the easiest place to get to, because a confluence of highways fed into the narrow commercial street, and traffic was always a headache.

But, you know, ketchup stains can set and become permanent, so she negotiated the clogged arteries of streets until she got to the alternative cleaner.

By sheer coincidence, it was in the same strip of stores and shops as the Kwickety Clickety photo shop. In fact, the dry-cleaner place was right next to it. The name of the photo place clicked—excuse me, I should apologize for that one—with Wanda Pines because she had taken that slip of paper out of Alex's jacket pocket just before tossing it in with the other dry cleaning.

In fact, she had it in her purse. She took it out and looked at it again. Yes, a receipt for photos. A lot of photos, judging from the price—but it was marked PAID.

And it bore the name of the shop right next door.

What a coincidence.

Since she was already in the shopping strip, first she dropped off the dry cleaning—the owner of the shop looked at the stain and cheerfully said, "Oh, sure, we get it out, no problem!"—and then Wanda went next door to the photo shop. She showed the young clerk the receipt, and he flipped through a drawer full of envelopes containing photos and shook his head. "Sorry, not in yet, check back after noon."

And so, she went out to her RAV4, got in, and had just started the engine but not yet put the car into reverse when the kid in the photo shop came running out waving a thick blue-and-white envelope. She rolled down the window and he stood beside the car, held the envelope out said, "The delivery guy came in the back as you were leaving! I think these are the ones you want. Pines, right?"

She showed him the receipt, he gave her the envelope, and she drove home.

Wow. Imagine that. The pictures came in just as she was leaving, and the kid at the counter was conscientious enough to check the shipment and find them, and courteous enough to run out and spot her before she drove away.

Coincidence, I guess.

She got home, dropped the photos on the mail table in the foyer, and busied herself with housework for about two hours. The mail came, and she took it inside and picked up the photo envelope, too. Wanda settled at the dining-room table to sort through the mail—dentist's bill, junk, promo for a satellite TV service, more junk, credit-card offer, reminder from the vet about the cat's shots . . . and on the bottom of the stack, the thick envelope of photos.

She peeled it open and took out sixty-odd five-by-seven photos. The first one showed Mabel and Stanley in a boat, broad grins on their faces, with some shirtless guy looming in the left part of the picture. The next one showed both twins in the same boat, presumably. They had on goofy cloth hats—"MABEL" and "DIPPY." That made Wanda laugh. She smiled nostalgically. Mabel's braces showed that this was an old photo—probably from 2012, the first summer they spent away from home, up in Gravity Falls. The kids looked so little back then.

She started looking through the whole stack. Some of them made her a little misty-eyed at how naive and innocent the kids looked in them. Some were just weird, like one shot of Dipper, a little older, posing beside a lawn gnome. Strange. Some pretty landscape shots turned up. She found one of Mabel and Dipper standing and looking proud beside the wooden sign for the Mystery Shack, which looked newly painted. And she looked at one picture of the boy Mabel liked, the O'Grady kid, and Dipper sitting on the floor in front of the TV, playing some video game with fierce concentration. This that, and the oth—

 _Oh, my God!_

Close to the bottom of the stack, Wanda found a photo of Dipper.

He was not alone.

She clutched the picture so tightly that her hand shook. She felt herself clenching her teeth.

And the more she looked at the photo, the more furious she felt.

She muttered, "Wait until he gets home!"


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Earth-Shattering**

 **(November 11, 2015)**

* * *

It was a rare occasion, maybe because it was Veterans Day and the coach was a proud veteran (US Navy, two tours). Anyhow, he was in a good mood that afternoon and just had the varsity team run timed laps, then released them early. Dipper hitched a ride with Macavoy and his dad and was home before four o'clock. He hadn't even bothered to shower, planning to do that at home.

When he came inside, he was a lot like the pre-pubescent Dipper: Sweaty. And things immediately turned awkward. Wanda Pines met him at the door. "Come into the living room," she said in such a strange voice that Dipper felt cold.

"What's wrong, Mom?" he asked. His brain immediately grew legs and jumped to a conclusion. "Has something happened to Mabel?"

 _She always drives that car, and sometimes I think she's not careful enough—_

Instead of following his mother, Dipper ran through the kitchen and threw open the garage door—

No, there sat Helen Wheels, nearly glowing that radioactive green color but obviously undamaged. His heart beat hard, but even over that he could hear the metallic ticking as the engine cooled. He took a long, deep, shaky breath. He had pictured Mabel lying in a hospital bed, bloodied and in a body cast, or even worse, but the car was here and safe, so—

Behind him, in an angry tone, his mother said, "Dipper! I said come with me!"

"Is Mabel OK?" he demanded, his voice climbing high, making him even more like his twelve-year-old self. "Where's Mabel?"

His mother's face shone scarlet. "She's in her room, and she'll stay there until you and I have a talk."

She all but pushed him to the living room. "Sit there," she said, pointing to an armchair at an angle to the sofa. She sat on the end of the sofa nearest him. "After we talk, I'm going to speak to Mabel. The two of you are not to say anything to each other before then."

"Mom, I don't understand—" Dipper said. He could feel the cool air of the house chilling the sweat in his shirt and on his forehead. "What did we _do_?"

She handed him the photo. "What do you get up to in Gravity Falls, Dipper?"

He stared at it in shock. In the picture he lay sprawled in bed, lying on his back, his chin tilted, his mouth wide open, his hair ruffled so his birthmark showed. He wore only black boxer briefs, and they had pulled down low, as they did when he slept in them. You could make out a brown fuzz of hair low on his belly. Beside his head on the pillow and nearby on the bed, three shiny amber-colored bottles lay on their sides, the one closest to him with its label clearly showing: RIMROCK PREMIUM LAGER.

But worse than that—Pacifica lay next to him on his right side, cuddled close to him. She had clearly kissed him—his cheek showed a scarlet lipstick smooch mark. Her knees were bent, and her bare feet rested on Grenda's shoulder. Grenda lay mostly on her stomach, but she was looking up, smirking at the camera. Her head rested on Dipper's thigh. Candy was on her side, embracing his left calf, her cheek pressed against his thigh just above the knee. She looked asleep.

Wendy, lying slantwise to make room for Candy, lay on her side very close to Dipper's left side, her eyes closed, a smile on her lips. She had one hand spread on his chest, one knee crooked over his upper thigh, just above Candy's head.

All the girls wore revealing, though not scandalous, nightwear. Dipper vaguely remembered that the outfits had been gifts from Pacifica for the girls' last sleepover back in August.

Dipper blinked. "Mom—this isn't real—I mean—the photo is real, but it's a stupid joke!"

"How much did you have to drink?" his mother asked.

He blinked. "Drink? Nothing! I've never—I don't—Mom, the only alcohol I've ever tasted in my whole life is the Passover wine in those little baby cups, and you know I can't even get down more than four sips of that! I don't like the way it tastes, I've never even had one beer—"

"Then are the girls drunk?"

"No, no—I don't know where the bottles came from. This was back at the end of August. There was a sleepover, and I moved downstairs so the girls could have the attic to themselves, and it took me forever to fall asleep, and in the morning they—" he ran out of wind and took a deep breath. "Mabel and the girls did this to tease me," he said miserably. "I didn't even know they _took_ a photo!"

"Have you and Mabel practiced an answer?" Mom asked.

He felt as though she had swung a hammer and hit him in the chest. "Mom, no! I swear. I swear by—by anything you want to name—this picture isn't what it looks like. And Mabel and I have never talked about it." He realized something. " _She_ took the picture! I—you can ask her! You know how Mabel is—always looking for scrapbookortunities!"

"Dipper, tell me truthfully: Do you kids drink? Do your uncles let you do that?"

"No!" He wondered if he looked as miserable as he felt. "I think maybe Wendy might have a beer with her dad now and then, but I've never seen her drinking at all. Candy and Grenda, no, I don't think so. I know Mabel doesn't ever drink. I swear, Mom. These bottles probably were Grunkle Stan's. He's not a big drinker, but occasionally he'll have one—wait, I remember. This was on a weekend morning, Sunday I think. The recycling's only picked up once a week, on Tuesdays. The girls probably dug the bottles out of the glass bin!"

"I wish I knew whether to believe you," his mom said. "Come with me." They went upstairs, and Wanda pointed. "Go to your room. Don't come out until I call you."

"Mom, please. Don't let this make you think Gravity Falls is bad for us—"

"I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "The way I feel right now, you won't go back to Gravity Falls."

"Not for Thanksgiving?" Dipper asked.

"Never," she said, and she closed the door on him.

* * *

Mabel's turn. She only knew that her mom was steaming mad about something—not what. Wanda took her down to the living room, put her in the same chair, and showed her the photo. "What were you and your brother up to?" she asked.

Mabel's face flamed. "I forgot about this! Mom, this isn't what you think. It was a dare. Uh, you know, Truth or Dare? Us girls had a sleepover, except we stayed up all night long and didn't sleep at all, and this was, I think, uh, Sunday morning early, and we were playing the game and—and I dared the others to go pose for a photo with Dipper." Tears shimmered in her eyes. She squeaked, "I guess it wasn't a good idea."

"I am surprised at all of you. Most of all by Wendy's behavior. She's an adult, or she's supposed to be!"

Mabel squirmed under the lash of her mother's words. "Wendy held out," she said. "She didn't even want to do this. But, see, she hadn't had a wink of sleep, and, and Mom, you don't know this about her, but her mother died when she was real young, and there were only her three brothers and her dad in the family, and she had hardly any friends. Well, there's one, the girl that married Robbie, her name's Tambry—"

"Wasn't she pregnant when they got married?"

"What? No! Where did you get that idea? No, Mom! But Tambry and Wendy were best friends, but Wendy couldn't have sleepovers because her house is so small, and she knew her brothers would do something mean if she had guests, so when she was the right age, she never learned about sleepovers, and, and she's kind of recapturing her childhood by coming to mine, and, and—it was a dare." She finally took a breath. "See, Dipper's always so shy around girls. I just wanted to make him feel like the center of attention."

"How much did you have to drink?"

"Uh, some lemonade, I don't remember, and some Mabel Juice when we got sleepy, to wake us up—oh, right, the bottles. We didn't drink _beer_. I mean, we don't _ever_ drink beer! Not at all. Those are props, OK? I got them out of the recycling bin, to make Dipper look like a party dude. It was . . . just . . . a dumb . . . joke," she said, winding down. "Mom, it wasn't his fault. He didn't even know about it."

"Are you telling me the truth?" Mom asked.

Weirdly, something flashed into Mabel's memory so vividly she almost saw and heard it again: "You're gonna hear a lot of bad things about me, and some of them are true, but trust me. Look into my eyes, Mabel. Do you really think I'm a bad guy?"

"I know how Grunkle Stan felt," she whispered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" her mom asked.

"Mom, please, trust me. Trust me. Dipper didn't drink, he never drinks, none of us girls drank. There was no making out, just the picture's all. Nothing happened. This is just a posed picture. It was a stupid trick, and m-my s-stupid idea and I'm s-stupid, and now you ha-hate me, and—" she burst into tears. "What are you gonna do to us?"

"Don't you think you and your brother should be punished?" Wanda asked.

Mabel shook her head. "N-not Dipper. He's totally innocent. It's all my s-stupid fault! You can g-ground me." She bit her lip. "T-take my car keys away. But Dipper hasn't done anything wrong."

"You two are not going back to Gravity Falls," Wanda said in a level, determined tone. "Not this year. Maybe not next year."

"Mom! No!" I have friends there! _Dipper_ has friends there—and he doesn't have _any_ here! Please, not that!" She gulped. "If, if I c-can't go, for Th-Thanksgiving, at least let D-Dipper go. You d-d0n't know wh-what you're—" she broke down into incoherent sobs.

Her mother sighed. "Even if I trust the two of you, how can I trust these girls? How can I trust _Wendy?_ I know this sounds harsh. But I'm thinking of you two. One day you'll understand that."

Mabel's face crumpled. She had no breath to express herself.

"Go to your room," Wanda said. "Don't come out until I call you. When your father gets home, he's going to see this picture, and then he and I will talk about it. But don't count on going back to Oregon anytime soon."

Kaboom.

The time bomb Mabel had unwittingly set running on August 23 had exploded.

There it was. Earth-shattering.

Mabel's heart felt so heavy she could barely climb the stairs to exile.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Where Do We Go from Here?**

 **(November 11, 2015)**

* * *

It was too early to call Wendy. She was still at work, and she had somehow grown so conscientious (Wendy the rule-breaker!) that she'd asked him to try not to call her until after hours. But this was an emergency.

Dipper punched in her number and groaned when the phone went straight to voicemail: "Hi, this is Wendy! Oh, wait, no, it's an answering app thingy. Hey, leave me a message and I'll probably call you back."

The sound of her voice made him tremble. He started to dial the Shack number, but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to speak coherently. Dipper felt like jumping out the window. Or like breaking things. Instead he threw himself on the bed and pulled the pillow over his head.

The phone rang—playing the tune he had written, "I Will Always Believe in Fairy Tales," Wendy's ringtone. He snatched it up. "Wendy! Something terrible—"

"Whoa, Dip," she said, her voice low but intense. "I already know. Mabes just called. We'll fix this. I don't know how yet, but we're gonna fix it."

"Mom won't _listen!"_ Dipper complained, feeling hot with anger. "She's made up her mind and she won't believe me. She won't even listen to me!"

"Dipper, man, I failed you—"

That stopped him for a moment. "Huh? No, it's not your fault! It was that picture that Mabel took. I, I never even knew she took one! It was just that dumb joke, but Mom won't—"

"Sh-sh-sh. Listen, Dipper. Chill and listen, OK? It's my fault 'cause I should've stopped the whole thing, but I didn't. I'm so sorry, man. I'm asking you to forgive me."

"But it's _not_ your fault!" Dipper said.

"Dipper, please."

He took a deep breath. "You know I forgive you, Wendy. I always will. You could never do anything that I wouldn't accept, but even if you managed somehow to do that—I'll always forgive you."

"That's sweet, man. Listen, though, this is key: Don't blame Mabes either, OK? It was just, you know, a Mabel thing. No harm meant. _Whatever_ you do, don't get mad at her. I don't think she's ever been this upset before."

"I—no, I don't blame her," Dipper said, everything that had happened whirling in his head. "I know, it was a joke and it got out of hand." He took a deep breath, remembering the times when he'd seen Mabel really down: The mean trick someone once played on her on picture day at school. The time she heard him planning to stay in Gravity Falls as Ford's apprentice. The day her favorite teacher died. The day Russ, the fox-boy, gave his life for her. "Mabel's really in bad shape, huh?" he asked. Then he added in a mumble, "Mom won't even let us talk to each other right now."

In a serious voice, Wendy said, "If I was there, I'd watch out for Mabel. She can't do anything crazy, so make sure she doesn't. Don't let her. That would ruin everything for good."

"Dad will be home soon. Maybe we can talk to him."

"I can tell you're not thinking real clearly either right now, so step back, deep breaths, think. Don't get carried away, Dipper. You and Mabel don't need a big scene with your mom, no matter what happens."

Frantic thoughts flared in his brain like a prairie fire. "Listen, if—if they say we can't—we've got our own car. We'll pack what we can and come up and just stay in Gravity Falls!"

Wendy came back firmly: "No, man. Bad idea. That's the track Mabes was on, but think: They'd call the cops with your car license plate. There'd be, like, an APB on you guys. If you didn't get stopped before you got to the border, they'd just come after you. Then you'd be banned for life—"

Dipper's response burst out fiercely: "No, just until I'm eighteen!"

A long sigh. "Dipper, seriously. You _don't_ want a break with your mom. You're mad right now, but believe me, you don't want that. Some of us would give anything to—" she broke off, and when she spoke again, her voice trembled: "to speak to our mom one last time."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be. Deep breaths, Dipper. Get hold of yourself. We're working on this thing. Just don't dig yourselves deeper into trouble. I know it's gonna be hard, but please. Promise me."

He said in a husky voice, "You—you can't see me, but—I'm zipping my lip. I promise. I—Wendy, I love you."

"Love you too, man. We'll work something out. But stay cool, man. Just . . . just stay cool."

He heard people's voices in the background, and he guessed that she was on register duty. He said goodbye and hung up and lay back in bed feeling sorry for himself.

The phone chimed: this time the tune was a close approximation of the theme song from the cartoon version of their lives they'd learned about when they'd chased a ghost and wound up in a strange alternate universe comics convention. Mabel had said the theme song was her favorite part of the show, and he'd made it her ringtone.

"Mabel," he said, "we're not supposed to talk."

"Mom said we weren't supposed to go into each other's rooms," Mabel replied. "OK. You're there, I'm here. Dipper, what are we gonna do?"

"Wendy said you talked to her."

"Oh, you called her, huh? She told me not to get upset. How can I _help_ being upset? I can't turn my feelings on and off like a faucet! I think I'm gonna die!"

Trying to live up to Wendy's advice, Dipper replied, "No, no, you're not. It's gonna be hard, Mabel, but hang on. We'll find _some_ way to get Mom to ease off. Maybe Dad can talk her around."

"The way she runs everything?" Mabel asked, her tone surprisingly bitter.

The fierce anger in her voice as she said it shocked him. "That's not . . . really true," he said. "She kinda runs the house, yeah, but that's because she's organized, and Dad just gets a little random—"

Mabel bored in hard: "Yeah, he's like me, and she' s like you, and she loves you and she ha-hates—"

"No. No she _doesn't_ ," Dipper said. "I _know_ Mom loves you. But—she's Mom, Mabel. You, you have to let people be who they are. It's rough sometimes, and it's wrong sometimes, and you've got to deal with it, but—I don't know. Let's just try not to rock the boat, OK? Until the weekend, at least? Let her cool down?"

"Brobro," Mabel said through sobs, "I—I asked her to let you go to Gravity Falls for Thanksgiving. I said she could ground me, but I told her it wa—wasn't your f-fault."

"She asked me about the picture, and I explained," Dipper said. "But I didn't blame you. I said it was just a joke. I think the beer bottles were what she couldn't get over. Well, that and the girls in their sexy nightgowns."

Mabel's laugh broke his heart, because it broke down into weeping. "Nightgowns! That's so last century! Nobody was wearing a nightgown in that picture, Brobro. They—they were—were shorty PJs and—and sleepwear—oh, Dipper, what are we gonna _do_?"

"I don't know," Dipper said, his head spinning, his thoughts full of a wild car chase up into Oregon, the cops hot on their trail. "But—I promised Wendy, now—one thing we're _not_ going to do is get carried away and yell and scream."

"You're no fun," Mabel said. And though she was teasing, she sounded as if she almost meant that seriously.

* * *

Dipper heard their father come in, and he waited. And waited. And waited. For two whole hours.

Then someone tapped on the door. "Come in," Dipper said, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

It was Alex. "I'm going to get Mabel," he said. "Just wanted to make sure you hadn't run away from home." He gave Dipper a strained smile.

He went away and came back a few moments later with a red-eyed Mabel. "You two sit on the bed," he said, swiveling Dipper's desk chair around for himself. He sat down, shaking his head. "Well," he said, "the good news is, we're ordering pizza for dinner tonight." He leaned forward and with his thumb he wiped a tear off Mabel's cheek. He sighed. "The fan's kind of clogged up with shit, isn't it?"

Mabel gasped. "Dad!"

"Bad joke," he said.

She dropped her gaze. "Yeah, I get the point. Mine was a _horrible_ joke. Dad, I'm so sorry, but it wasn't Dipper's fault!"

"Tell me the story," Alex said.

Mabel glared at the floor. "You sure you don't want to interrogate us separately? Compare our stories? That's what Mom did!"

"Are you going to cook up a cover story? Or lie to me?" Dad asked.

"No!" Dipper blurted, and Mabel shook her head.

"Didn't think so," he said. "OK, I saw the _Playboy_ shot. How did it happen?"

They told him, taking turns, Mabel first—since the whole thing had been her idea, and she'd pushed the other girls into it—and then Dipper, explaining he just woke up to find himself sort of covered up with girls and didn't even know that the camera flash was what had wakened him. "Anyhow," he said, "nothing _happened_. It was just the girls teasing me. They like to do that."

"Mm, yeah," Dad said. "What about Wendy? Why didn't she stop it?"

Mabel took a deep breath. "She wasn't sure about it. But it was Truth or Dare, Dad. Truth or Dare! That's like, like a sacred ritual! And I—I dared her."

"Wendy _had_ gone twenty-four hours without sleep," Dipper said.

"And Wendy is older than us—not much, not much—but you gotta understand, she didn't have a normal girlhood," Mabel added. "Her Mom died when she was little, see—" She explained how Wendy was not really at ease with sleepovers, but came to hers because—well, because she liked Mabel and her friends and wanted to have at least a taste of that fun she'd missed at twelve and thirteen.

"She was tired and she didn't want to be the mom to the other girls," Dipper explained. "She made a mistake. That's all. It didn't hurt anything."

"Anybody can make a mistake," Alex agreed.

Dipper's face was bright red. "Dad," he said, "Wendy told me you know that she and I are, you know, going together. But we—" He bit his lip, embarrassment tying his tongue. He made an effort: "Dad, we're not sleeping together! I swear! We decided to wait until I'm old enough not to need, you know—"

"Parental consent," Alex finished for him. "I understand. But you _want_ parental consent, don't you? You two are talking marriage, I know that."

Dipper nodded. "I want your consent. But with or without, the day I'm eighteen—"

Mabel reached over, squeezed his hand, and shook her head.

"You don't have to tell me," Alex said. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a lot like Dipper in his more uncomfortable moments. "I believe you. Both of you. And I like Wendy a lot. Dipper, you couldn't do better. I'll trust you to wait until the right time. On the other hand, Wanda—well, your mother's going to need some time to process this and to understand it."

"You mean we'll have no Thanksgiving trip," Dipper said dully.

"We'll have to see," his father said, his voice gentle. "But probably not in the way you wanted. We may all drive up as a family, but it will just be for a couple of days, I'm afraid, and I doubt that Wanda would let you out of her sight the whole time. Unless we can change her mind."

"It's not fair!" Mabel wailed. "Dipper didn't _do_ anything! Let him go, at least!"

"Not without you," Dipper said.

Her face, already blotchy from crying, scrunched up in misery. "But I _caused_ all this!"

"You didn't mean to get us in trouble," Dipper told her. He didn't even ask but gave her an awkward sibling hug. As soon as they broke apart, he told his father, "I won't go without Mabel."

"I sort of expected that," Alex said, smiling. "And I sort of expected Mabel would offer to make the sacrifice. We'll see what we can do. I can't promise anything—"

"Listen," Mabel said quietly. "Somehow let Mom know—don't make it a threat, because it isn't, it's just the truth—but let her know that we _need_ Gravity Falls. If she grounds us and never lets us go back—let her know somehow—just let her know that when we're eighteen, I'm out of here for good. She'll never see me again."

"Mabel," Dipper said, "you don't mean that."

"Try me," Mabel said. And she didn't sound like her usual cheerful self at all. She sounded as though she meant it.

"Dad," Dipper said, " _please_."

"I'll try, son," his father promised. "I'll try."

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
